Special education of the republic of uzbekistan

Phonetic drills

1. 
   Copy out the following sentences, mark their stresses and read them:
   

1. 
   Then I began to get nervous myself. 2. We never said good - night to one another. 3. I don’t
   

understand German myself. 4. At about four o’clock we began to discuss our arrangements for the evening. 5. I had different ways of occupying myself while I lay awake. 6. Andrew loved his work and he counted himself fortunate to have such an opportunity so early in his career. 7. A woman took it, looking at her curiously, and so did the young man with her, and other people held out their hands even before Ma got to them, walking slowly along the line. As she stepped over and held out one of the leaflets, the policeman, reddening with annoyance, reached out and snatched it from her hand. Instantly, without thinking, Ma snatched it back.

2. 
   Read each of the following sentences shifting the position of the last stress according to the following pattern:
   

Lanny turned into Adderley Street.

(a) Who turned into Adderley Street? `Lanny turned into ˎAdderley Street.

(b) Where did Lanny turn? 'Lanny 'turned into `Adderley Street.

1. Fatty came over to his table. 2. I’m leaving to-night. 3. Lanny shrugged. 4. Fatty clicked his tongue in sympathy. 5. At the door he shook Fatty’s hand. 6. Two taxis took them to the station. 7. The train was waiting.

3. 
   Read the situations to yourself and according to their contents, mark the intonation of the sentences in bold type:
   

1. I remember, after my grandfather died we moved away from that house to a new house designed and built by my mother. 2. At first Kerbs … did not want to talk about the war at all. Later he felt the need to talk but no one wanted to hear about it. 3. But the world they were in was not the world he was in. 4. “But really you should have a lady’s-maid!” “I’m sure I’ll take you with pleasure!” the Queen said. “Two pence a week, and jam every other day” Alice couldn’t help laughing, as she said, “I don’t want you to hire me and I don’t care for jam,” “It’s very good jam,” said the Queen.
4. Read the following sentences paying attention to the unstressed as…as :
1. He could not lie as quietly as I could. 2. Jim was not as surprised as he sounded. 3. She was as pale as a sheet. 4. The old man had told his son to let him know as soon as the post arrived. 5. They were as happy as a pair of small boys. 6. His silence was as sultry as the day before a storm. 7. He was as welcome among them as at the other place. 8. The sea was as smooth as a millpond. 9. They could live on the farm as long as they wished. 10. How many sandwiches shall I make? Make as many as you think we’ll eat.

Rhythm

Rhythm in speech is the recurrence of stressed syllables in a sense-group at certain intervals of time. In connected English speech stressed syllables have a strong tendency to follow each other as nearly as possible at equal intervals of time and the unstressed syllables (whether many or few) occupy the time between the stressed syllables. The greater the number of unstressed syllables, the quicker they are pronounced, e.g.
'Andrew 'went 'back to ˎLondon.

'Andrew has 'gone 'back to ˎLondon.

'Andrew should have 'gone back to ˎLondon.

A stressed syllable pronounced together with the unstressed syllables forms a rhythmic group.

A sense-group may consist of one or more rhythmic groups.

Changes in the tempo of English speech caused by the regularity of its rhythm are closely connected with changes in the length of English sounds, especially vowels.

The characteristic features of English speech rhythm may be summed up as follows:

1. 
   The regular recurrence of stressed syllables which results in:
   

1. 
   the pronunciation of each rhythmic group in a sense-group in the same period of time, irrespective of the number of unstressed syllables in it;
   
2. 
   the influence of this feature of English speech rhythm upon the tempo of speech and the length of sounds, especially vowels.
   

2. 
   The alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, which results in the influence of rhythm upon word-stress and sentence-stress.
   

We see that sentence-stress has one more function: to serve as the basis for the rhythmical structure of the sentence.

H e is 'very ˎbusy.

' W hy ˎnot? It’s a 'lovely ˎday.

' N ick is a’ 'gain on 'business in ˎMoscow.