English Rhythm

Blending, Stress/ Rhythm,

Intonation and
Phrasing/PausingKariza S. Maniago
 RHYTHM
• MUSIC:  the arrangement of the relative durations of and
accents on the notes of a melody, usually laid out into regular
groups (bars) of beats, the first beat of each bar carrying the
stress  

• POETRY:  the arrangement of words into a more or less

regular sequence of stressed and unstressed or long and
short syllables .

• ARTS: a harmonious sequence or pattern of masses

alternating with voids, of light alternating with shade, of
alternating colors, etc

• MEDICINE: any sequence of regularly recurring functions

or events, such as the regular recurrence of certain
physiological functions of the body, as the cardiac rhythm of
the heartbeat
 PROSODY
• It refers to the overall sound pattern
we make for phrases and sentences.
• As we produce the sequence of consonants
and vowels of the words we are putting
together, we also overlay
a sound
contour on the sequence.
• Without this, our speech will sound like
that of the robots or talking computers
in old movies speaking in a monotone,
completely
expressionless.
The big prosodic difference between English and Philippine languages
• English is stress-timed
• Philippine languages are syllable-timed.

IN PHILIPPINE LANGUAGES
• Syllables are produced at an almost even rate
• even as we differentiate the stressed syllables from the unstressed ones,

• All the vowels remain full vowels.

• No schwas.
• Vowels in final position may
be lowered, but do not totally
become neutral.
• In English
the words get organized into meaningful
phrases
usually get only one syllable
stressed in that phrase.

• Nearly all the vowels

in-between get weakened
to schwas;
• some even disappear altogether

• The voice swings from stress point to stress

point, and it is these stress points that are
more or less evenly spaced out.
• Stress is sounded in terms of length, volume
and pitch, meaning that the stressed syllable is
somewhat longer, louder, and higher in pitch
than the unstressed syllable.
• It is only partially predictable in some types of
words
(e.g. a major stress on "a" of the suffix "-ation"),
which is why most of our English mispronunciations have to do
with misplaced stress, often with a consequent error in the
vowel affected,
Extremist [ɪks'tri: mɪst] not ['ekstrɪmɪst]

Organization [,orgənə‘zejʃən] not [or’gænə,zejʃən]

• In some cases, the same word form
may have shifts in stress to signal
differences in grammatical use. In such
cases, stress is morphemic, in that it
carries its own distinctive meaning,
such as in the following contrasts:
CONTEST [1 ka:nt est] noun, vs. [ken ' test]
verb

EXPLOIT [' eksplo jt] noun, vs. [Iks ' plojt] verb
• Some word forms in Filipino also show a
contrast in stress, signaling different
meanings:
Fil. APO [' Apo] 'grandparent;, vs. [A' po] 'grandchild‘

Fil. GALIT ['anger‘], vs. [gA ' lit] 'angry'

[ʃi: 'lʌvz mi: ʃi: 'lʌvz mi: 'na:t]
 Pronunciation Tip
To signal the stressed syllable:

1. Lengthen it. (Take your time!)

2. Raise the pitch. (Think high and

lift your head!)

3. Emphasize it. (Make it strong!)

Stress in a content word is also used to differentiate compound words or
phrases from ordinary phrases. A word form that becomes the second part
of a compound loses its stress.

single stress double stress

• blackbird (a bird species) • black bird
• blackboard (chalkboard, • black board
actually colored dark
green)
• bluebell (a flower)
• blue bell
• bluebottle (a fly species) • blue bottle
• White House (official
residence of the US •white house
President)
 The meaning changes when you change
the stress.
• Look at the DEsert. • Look at the desSERT.

• He gave me a • He gave me a
MESsage. masSAGE.

• What did you think of • What did you think of

the COmedy?  the comiMITtee?
 
• He lives in a JEEP now. • He lives in Egypt now.
 
Vowel Mitigation
• Stress timing causes some
sound changes.
Vowels which are not in stress points get weakened,
or mitigated, and become schwas.
For instance, the words do and you get the [u]
replaced by [ә] in the sentence

How do you do?

since the stress points are on how and the second do.
Elision [E*li"son]
• In long words, unstressed vowels even disappear, a phenomenon
called elision (a.k.a. deletion). Often, these vowels are associated
with consonants which can become syllabic [ɹ], [l], and [n].
int(e)resting sep(a)rate natur(a)lly
temp(e)rature delib(e)rate gener(a)lly
fav(o)rable fav(o)rite accident(a)lly
mis(e)rable diff(e)rent awf(u)lly
pleas(u)rable rest(au)rant physic(a)lly
comf(o)rtable asp(i)rin practic(a)lly
reas(o)nable bev(e)rage economic(a)lly
veg(e)table ev(e)ning
laborat(o)ry choc(o)late
element(a)ry fam(i)ly
document(a)ry
• A few consonants may also disappear, as in:
• en(t)erprise
• en(t)ertainment
• in(t)ernational
• In(t)ernet
• in(t)erview
• Feb(r)uary
• We(d)nesday
 LIAISON
• Aside from stress timing, English also
differs from Philippine languages in that
the sounds of words get connected to each
other.

• We tend to introduce glottal stops

before words that begin with vowels,
causing a choppy effect.
• The fact is that English has
no glottal stop.
The phonetic effect of liaison is to make the connections such
that the end sound of one word actually becomes integrated
into the sound of the succeeding word.

• It's an apple. • [... sə næ ...]

• Come in. • [... mɪn]
• It's all over. • [... so low ...]
• I give up. • [... vʌp]
• He made a mess. • [... də ...]
• Cook a meal. • [... kə ...]
• He robbed a bank. • [də ...]
• She baked a cake. • [... tə ...]
• She loves him. • [... zɪm]
• He likes her. • [... ser]
 Listen and repeat the following phrases. Hold the last
sound of one word until you say the first sound of the next
word.
 
1. turn around tur-naround
2. turns around turn-zaroun
3. look alike loo-kalike
4. looks away look-saway
5. jumps up jum-psup
6. jumped up jump-tup
7. call after cal-lafter
8. called after call-dafter
9. pulled out pull-dout
10. bakes it bake-sit
 TONE
• Usually, we associate tone with Chinese and some
African languages, in which the same set of
segments may have different meanings depending
on the different pitch contours used in
pronouncing them. For this reason, they are called
tonal languages.

• Actually, all languages manifest tone but in

different ways. In the tonal languages, tone is
phonemic, in that it is used as an integral part of
the sequence that makes a word.

• In English, it is used to give a variety of nuances to

the same word, whose literal meaning may even be
supplanted by the meaning suggested by the tone.

• Observe how the words "no," "yes," and "right" are

used with different tones; "no" can even be said to
mean "yes."
 INTONATION
• Intonation is the pitch contour spread out over a sentence, and is usually
associated with the intent behind the sentence.

• Types of sentences have their usual intonation pattern — a rising pattern

for the interrogative, a falling pattern for the declarative.

• Still, the intonation pattern may be used freely with other sentence types.

• Why is your room dirty? said with a falling intonation,

interpreted as a command to clean up the room.
• He came early said with a rising intonation (and thus can be
punctuated with a question mark),
• equivalent to Did he come early? Or I don't believe he came early.
 End-of-the-sentence Intonation:
Steps and Glides

• The ends of the sentences are important in English.

• Frequently, the focus word, the most emphasized word, is
near the end of the sentence.

• Most sentences end with a downward pitch line, or

melody, that lets your listener know that you are finished
with the sentence.
• This downward pitch line is called falling intonation.
• The melody either glides or steps down.
• (To glide is to move smoothly and effortlessly.)
Glides The pitch on the last stressed syllable jumps up before it
glides down.
Steps If the stressed syllable is
not last, the pitch goes up
on the stressed syllable
and then steps down.
 RATE
• It refers to the number of speech sounds or
groups of speech sounds, like syllables or
words, per given time. It is interesting to note
that languages do have different normal rates.
Spanish is spoken
very, very rapidly,
while

Latin is spoken
very, very slowly
• A good rate of speaking English is set
at about 160 to 170 words per
minute in newscasting,
• 100-135 in delivering formal
speeches.
• Certainly, you will have to vary your rate according to the
demands of the speech event.

• Doing a running commentary of a

basketball game will necessarily mean
a very fast rate, while
• Instructing someone in a particular
process, like cooking or surgery, will
mean a slow rate.
 PHRASING
The art of phrasing is the act of
grouping together words, phrases,
clauses and other elements of speech
when speaking so
that the listener can
easily grasp the
meaning and
significance of
what is being said.
 Pausing ,
• Pauses are essentially spoken punctuation
marks that help the listener distinguish
between the different ideas that are being
expressed.
• Commas are presented as short pauses,
with longer pauses being assigned to colons
and semi-colons.

• These pauses signify

• conclusion of a section of thought
• shift from one topic or another,
• reinforce the interpretation that the speaker wants
their audience to draw from their words.
 End of Report
Thank You For Listening