Stress, Rhythm and Intonation

Stress, rhythm and intonation are inextricably linked. It is almost impossible to

speak of any one of these aspects of spoken English without referring to the others.
However it is clearly necessary for the sake of clarity to deal with each one
individually. What I propose to do, then, is to begin with a brief overview of these
interrelated questions and then go on to look at each one separately.
Look at the following sentence. What information is needed to be able to
pronounce it correctly?
"There was a photographer at the corner of the street."1[1]
You will all have noticed that there is a clear trend in English to give particular
emphasis to the most important items of information in any utterance. English
speakers tend to "package" their spoken production in such a way as to highlight
what they consider to be the essential elements of the message they wish to put
across. In this particular case, it is most likely that the speaker will highlight the
words "photographer", "corner" and "street". As a consequence, he (or she2[2]) will
tend to reduce the stress he gives to the other, less important items in the sentence.
To illustrate what I mean, by taking this to an absurd extreme, an utterance such as
"hum hum hum photographer hum hum corner hum hum street" would probably
be understood. In a particularly noisy situation, people might not even realize that
what you had actually said in place of the unstressed syllables was "hum hum" etc.
and would assume that they had not been able to identify the sounds clearly
because of the high level of background noise. They would I believe almost
unconsciously substitute the predictable words "There was a", "at the" and "of the"
in place of your hum-humming.
On the other hand an excessively full pronunciation "There was a photographer at
the corner of the street" would be ridiculous, unless perhaps the sentence was
pronounced under specific a-typical circumstances, as for example during a
dictation exercise. There is no point in ordinary life wasting people's time by
stressing predictable, relatively uninformative, and therefore largely redundant
parts of sentences. Hence the need to stress the informative parts of an utterance
and not the rest.

1[1]This example is taken from a lecture I attended years ago in Paris given by Professor
GIMSON.
2[2] hereafter "he" will be taken to mean "he or she" and "she" to mean "she or he".
Now let's return to the example. We have identified the words "photographer",
"corner" and "street" as requiring stress within the sentence. However we have not
yet considered where to place the stress within the words themselves. There is of
course no difficulty about "street", which only has one syllable. We now need to
know where to place the stress in the other two words, according to the stress
rules. "photographer" is stressed on the second syllable, or to be more accurate the
antepenultimate syllable, and "corner" on the first, or penultimate.
So we now know that the stress in our sentence will fall on "pho to grapher",
"cor ner", and "street". What happens to the rest of the sentence? All the other
syllables in the sentence will be reduced to their weak form, which in this
particular sentence happens to be the "schwa" in all cases. In actual fact, not all
unstressed syllables are reduced to a weak form, and the "schwa" is not the only
phoneme used in weak forms. It is, however, the most common. In colloquial
English, it accounts for almost 11% of all vowel sounds3[3].
So we have three stressed syllables, and a number of unstressed syllables. Before
we actually pronounce the sentence there is one other fundamental aspect of
spoken English we must take into account, and that is rhythm. There is a clear
tendency in English to pronounce stressed syllables according to a relatively
regular rhythm organised around the stressed syllables. English is a stress-timed
language which tends toward a regular rhythm of broadly equal-length beats on
stressed syllables, the unstressed syllables being "squeezed in" to fit the available
time, and frequently reduced to a weak form.
"There was a pho to grapher at the cor ner of the street."
So to make any utterance in English, you need to decide which words in the
sentence convey "new" information. You then need to know which syllables of
these words carry stress, you need to know what to do with the remaining
syllables-in other words you need to know their weak forms-and you need to
pronounce the whole thing according to the relatively regular rhythm pattern of
English.
Then, of course, you have to decide on the appropriate intonation. What sort of
tune do you use? If the sentence is a simple statement, "There was a pho to grapher
at the cor ner of the street.", the appropriate intonation is a falling tune on the last
stressed syllable. Preceding stressed syllables will normally be spoken at a higher
level. The same sentence could be a question, calling the information it contains
into doubt. If this is the case, then the sentence is pronounced with an intonation
that rises progressively from one stressed syllable to the next, with a particularly

3[3]GIMSON, p148
marked rise on the final stressed syllable: "There was a pho to grapher at the
cor ner of the street?"
Let us now move on to look at the phenomena of word stress, weak forms, rhythm
and intonation separately and in more detail.
Word Stress
"... the hearer expects sharp contrasts of prominence and expects peaks of
prominence at particular places in a word or a phrase. Understanding is severely
handicapped if such expectations are frustrated."4[4]
Rhythm
There is a very clear tendency in English to organize an utterance around stressed
syllables according to a regular rhythm. This does not mean, of course, that you
should speak English with a kind of precise mental metronome, but there is a very
clear tendency towards this kind of rhythmical pattern. One implication of this is
that the unstressed syllables between stressed syllables tend to contract or expand
to fill the time available. Here are some examples of phrases with zero, one, two, or
three syllables between the stressed syllables (in bold print). Repeat after the
recording :
1 a good boy (zero syllables)
2 as good as gold (one syllable)
3 as quick as a flash (two syllables)
4 as nutty as a fruit cake (three syllables)
Tub-thumping politicians with a robust oratorical style tend to stress a large
proportion of the words in their speeches, as if to underline the importance of what
they have to say. There are consequently relatively few unstressed syllables to fit in
between the stressed syllables. This is an example of the sort of thing I mean :
"The people of this country are no longer prepared to sit back and let Whitehall
mandarins rule their lives. It is high time the British government took notice of
what the people really want."
Less deliberately emphatic speech contains a much higher proportion of
unstressed syllables. Let's look at an example :

4[4]QUIRK et al. - A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. - p1589
This is the paper I bought yesterday morning
The stress will fall (in a fairly neutral sort of context) on This, 'paper, bought,
'yesterday, and 'morning. This gives :
'This is the 'paper I 'bought 'yesterday 'morning
You will notice the relatively regular rhythm. What this means is that the
unstressed syllables will tend to be pronounced rather faster to squeeze them up to
maintain the approximately regular rhythmic beat on the stressed syllables.
- . . / - . . / - / - . . / - .
This is the / paper I / bought / yesterday / morning
Intonation
Intonation serves two basic types of function in English. It can serve to let your
listener know whether or not you have finished your sentence, or whether, on the
contrary, you intend to add to what you have just said, and, for example, whether
you are making a statement or asking a question. It can also serve to convey
information about your attitude. Are you trying to be friendly, or helpful, or are
you being cold and hostile?
The first of these two uses is conveniently illustrated by the example of lists. When
you are giving a list, you need to signal whether the list is finished or not. For
example if somebody asks you which countries in Europe you have been to, you
might say, "I've been to Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, England and Sweden.
Each item before "Sweden" will be pronounced with rising intonation, and
"Sweden", the last item in your list, with falling intonation. To take another
example, if you want to offer your guests a drink, and you only have sherry and
whisky, you might ask, "Would you like sherry or whisky." The falling intonation
on the last element of the list should signal to your guests that it's no good asking
for port, gin, or anything else. If, however, your drinks cabinet is remarkably well
stocked, so much so that you have difficulty in remembering everything you could
offer your guests, you might use the same sentence as above, but with a different
intonation pattern to suggest that the list of drinks you mention is by no means
exhaustive: "Would you like sherry, or whisky ...".
It can also be used in some rather more complicated "grammatical" contexts, to
signal for example a parenthesis. Consider this example :
"The capitalism that President Smith advocates, for it is capitalism, however
strenuously he and his advisers deny it, is of a kind that his electorate will find
increasingly difficult to accept."
The boundaries of the parenthetic remark " ... for it is capitalism, however
strenuously he and his advisers deny it, ..." are signalled by intonation markers.
This would involve rising intonation at the end of the part of the sentence which
comes before the parenthesis, to show that the sentence is not finished, and then
rising intonation again at the end of the parenthesis, followed by an intonation
pattern that seems to carry on from where it was interrupted.
Another example of the way in which intonation and "sentence stress" can provide
a kind of "audible punctuation" occurs when a contrast is made within an
utterance. Take this example:
"You might enjoy watching Sumo wrestling on television, but I certainly don't!"
The words which should stand out are undelined. In a sense, the intonation pattern
corresponds to a kind of "audible underlining".
In the following example, however, only intelligent reading will enable you to
mentally underline the words involved in the contrast, here "Arthur" and "Janet" in
the second sentence. Listen :
"Arthur took Janet to the theatre to see Tom Stoppard's play 'Travesties'. Arthur
thought it was the funniest play he had ever seen, but Janet said she had never
been so bored in all her life."
Intonation is also used to distinguish statements from questions and so on, and I
would like to turn to this particular function of intonation before we go on to look
at how intonation can convey information as to the speaker's attitude. This brief
review of intonation in English will inevitably be rather simplified because of lack
of time.
Statements
Statements will normally be pronounced with falling intonation on the stressed
syllable of the last "important" word in the "information unit" (sentence, phrase,
clause ...) For example, in a sentence such as "John bought a new car this morning",
in which "car" is the last important word, the fall takes place on this word. Stressed
syllables occurring before the stressed syllable of the last "important" word may be
pronounced at a high or low level, according to factors such as the degree of
interest the speaker wishes to express. Words occurring after it are pronounced
(still in the case of statements) at a uniformly low level.
Unstressed syllables preceding the first stressed syllables of the sentence
(information unit would be more precise, but in most of the examples here the
information unit will be a sentence, for the sake of simplicity) are pronounced on a
low level. For example the word "the" in:
The next train is at five.
"Yes-No" and "wh" questions
"Yes-no" questions are, as their name suggests, questions which solicit a yes or no
answer, as opposed to open "wh" questions. For example :
"Are you coming to the party next week?"
is a "yes-no" question, whereas
"Where are you going for your summer holidays this year?"
is an open "wh" question. ("wh" stands for the interrogative words when, why,
where, who, which, what and how.)
"Yes-No" questions
These questions are pronounced with rising intonation. The main intonation
movement takes place on the stressed syllable of the last "important" word of the
question (which I will refer to from now on as the "nuclear" syllable). Stressed
syllables coming before the nuclear syllable may be pronounced at a high or low
level according to factors such as the degree of interest, urgency or involvement
the speaker wishes to express. Unstressed syllables before them will be
pronounced at a low level. Note, however, that, unlike statements, stressed
syllables following the nuclear syllable continue the rising intonation pattern. Let's
take an example. You want to know whether your friend Fred is coming to the
party on Saturday. The "important" word is "party", the nuclear syllable is "par". It
is on this syllable that the rising intonation tune will begin, and it will continue
until the end of the sentence.
Are you coming to the party on Saturday, Fred ?
Some more examples:
1 Does this train go to Farnham, please?
2 Is it interesting?
3 Are you serious?
4 Is there nothing we can do?
Note that some utterances which might at first sight appear to be questions are in
fact something else - commands, for instance. Let's look at an example. "Will you
be quiet?" has all the hallmarks of a question. There is inversion of the verb and its
subject, and there may be a question mark. However it is clearly not intended as a
question, but rather as a form of command. The required response is not so much
"yes" or "no", as obedience - silence. The appropriate intonation is falling
intonation.
"Wh" questions
Unlike "yes-no" questions, "wh" questions are pronounced with falling intonation.
This is perhaps because the presence of an interrogative (wh-) word already
identifies the utterance as a question. Alternatively you could consider that a "wh"
question is a statement with an explicit "question mark" in place of one of the
elements of the statement. Consider for example :
John is vice-president of the debating society.
The falling tune occurs on the nuclear syllable (in bold). If you don't know who is
vice-president, you replace the word John with the word "who". This "wh"
question is pronounced in the same way as the statement above:
Who is vice-president of the debating society?
Here are some more examples. The nuclear syllable is in bold type :
1 When is the next bus to Dover?
2 What are you going to do about it?
3 Why did you have to tell them?
4 What's on at the cinema this evening?
5 Who's going to drive tonight?
6 Why didn't you say so?
7 What is the capital of California?
8 Where are you going?
Note that there is one particular type of "wh" question which does not behave in
this way, and that is the sort of "wh" question which expresses surprise and
requests confirmation. This is the kind of "wh" question in which the interrogative
word is the "most important word", and hence the nuclear syllable. It is often
underlined in written transcriptions of dialogue.Consider the same sentence as
above. Imagine you have just been told that John is vice-president of the debating
society and that you are surprised at the choice. You express your surprise and ask
for confirmation:
Who is president of the debating society?
This has the same sort of intonation as "yes-no" questions, with a rising tune on the
nuclear syllable (who) followed by a steady continuation of this rising intonation
until the end of the utterance.
Here are some more examples of this type of sentence. Once again, the nuclear
syllable is in bold type :
1 When did you say he was coming?
2 Who did you say you saw yesterday?
3 What did he say?
4 Where did he go?
5 Who did he marry?
Question tags
Some question tags are real questions, others are simply invitations to continue the
conversation. Imagine you are with a friend, and that you are both looking out of
the window. It is a beautiful, warm, sunny day. You say : "It's a lovely day, isn't
it?". The question tag is not a question, but rather an invitation from some further
comment from your friend. That is why the tag is pronounced with a falling
intonation pattern. You know it's a lovely day, and you know your friend knows
it's a lovely day. When you say "It's a lovely day, isn't it?", you expect your friend
to say, "Yes it is, beautiful!" or something like that.
Now imagine that you are talking about the company you used to work for. You
think that the head office is now in London, but you're not really sure. You might
say :
"The head office is in London now, isn't it?"
with rising intonation. Your friend will reply something like :
"Yes, that's right" or "No, it's in Paris". In other words, the question tag corresponds
to a genuine request for either confirmation or correction, and so it is pronounced
with a rising tune.
Now, here are some examples of the first type of question tag. You are pretty sure
of what you are saying, but you are simply inviting some kind of comment. You
therefore use a falling intonation:
1 You've got it wrong, haven't you?
2 She's pretty, isn't she?
3 You're French, aren't you?
4 He's nice, isn't he?
5 It's going to rain, isn't it?
Here are the same sentences again. This time, however, you are not quite so sure of
what you are saying, and though you expect agreement, you would not be unduly
surprised if the answer was no. The question tag is pronounced with rising
intonation.
1 You've got it wrong, haven't you?
2 She's pretty, isn't she? (i.e. somebody you may have heard about rather vaguely, but whom you
have never actually seen)
3 You're French, aren't you?
4 He's nice, isn't he?
5 It's going to rain, isn't it? (i.e. You are not very good at forecasting the weather)
Before we go on to look at the way intonation is used to express the speaker's
attitude, I think it would be useful to look at these sentences in somewhat greater
detail to see how the intonation tunes are actually realized.
The nuclear syllable
The main movement of the intonation tune centres on the "nuclear" syllable. The
nuclear syllable is the stressed syllable of the last accented word in the
"information unit". The most likely nuclear syllable has been written in bold type
in the examples below. But what about the rest of the sentence? Let's look at an
example in more detail. Take the sentence, "That's what everybody thinks." We can
identify it as a statement, and therefore choose falling intonation. Except for
specific meanings, such as, for example, "That's what everybody thinks, yes, but
not what they say.", it will be the word "everybody" which is the most important.
To make things even clearer, here is a possible context :
- I think John was right to have done what he did.
- That's what everybody thinks.
- Does that mean you don't agree?
- Well, I'm not really very sure ...
It is clear that in this context the "thinking" refers to an issue that has already been
brought up (i.e. the proposition that John was right etc). In pronouncing the
sentence used in the example the speaker is adding the idea of "everybody". That is
why "everybody" is the accented word, and not "thinks".
So what happens to "thinks"? Consider what happens before the nucleus and after
the nucleus.
Before the nucleus - "Head" and "pre-head"
"The head begins with the stressed syllable of the first accented word (before the
nucleus); the pre-head consists of any syllables before the stressed syllable of the
first accented word."5[5]
After the nucleus - "Tail"
" all syllables following the nucleus are called the tail [...] there can be no accented
word in the tail, though there may be stressed words in it ..."6[6]
In statements, the head is normally pronounced on a high level, the pre-head and
tail on a low level.

5[5]O'CONNOR & ARNOLD, Intonation of Colloquial English, 1973, p17
6[6]ibid, p15
(1) -
Let's go on to another example. This time it's a "yes-no" question, and so the
intonation pattern is a rising tune.
Are you going to the carnival tomorrow?
In one plausible pronunciation, the head begins with "you" (and continues with the
syllable "go" of "going". "The" is a pre-head. The syllables following the nucleus
"car" constitute the tail. Pre-head and head behave very similarly in both "yes-no"
questions and statements. The tail, however, behaves quite differently. Whereas in
statements the tail is pronounced at a uniformly low pitch, in rising intonation
patterns the tail continues the rising tune.
(2) -
Here is another sentence, which is a fairly straightforward "wh" question:
(3) -
This next sentence is a request for confirmation with stress on the "wh" word (i.e.
in a context where the fact that "he has told you something" has already been
introduced into the discourse:
(4) -
Attitude
Broadly speaking, falling intonation suggests some kind of finality or
completeness. That is why it is appropriate to statements, and also to "wh"
questions, which, as I suggested earlier, might usefully be thought of as
"statements of questions", in that the item you want information about is explicitly
replaced by a "wh" word. To a certain extent you are stating your request for
information. Falling intonation is by far the most frequent tune in English,
accounting for over 50% of all the "information units" in a corpus of British
English7[7]
Rising information, on the other hand, suggests that there is something "non-
final", incomplete, or "open" about the utterance. This of course is why it is
appropriate for "yes-no" questions, and for "wh" questions seeking confirmation.
Rising intonation might also be used to make a statement and at the same time
encourage a response. For example "It's a beautiful day today" with rising
intonation suggests something similar to the same sentence with a question tag
with falling intonation : "It's a beautiful day today, isn't it". It might also sound
wistful and dreamy - in fact it might suggest a number of "non-final" meanings.
(5) -
Rising intonation can also make a command sound rather less imperious, more
friendly, perhaps more persuasive.
(6) -
(7) -
Similarly, an apparently "yes-no" question pronounced with falling intonation may
not in fact be a question at all, but a command with a touch of irritation - and a
command that demands to be taken seriously. For example:

7[7]QUIRK et al, A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, p1602
(8) -
Another important factor is the range of pitch through which the voice moves in an
utterance. As a general rule, the greater the range of pitch, the greater the emotion
the speaker conveys. It is worth recalling that the range of pitch employed by
English speakers is often considerable. It is important to get this right, as
inaccurate intonation could give a very misleading impression. Take, for example,
a dialogue such as :
A - Well, did you enjoy the party last night?
B - Oh yes, it was wonderful!
If speaker B is (or at least, wishes to sound) sincere, the falling intonation pattern in
the information group "it was wonderful" will take place over a wide pitch range :
(9) -
A much smaller degree of pitch variation could make the same utterance sound
insolently sarcastic.
Here are some more examples:
1 There was a photographer at the
corner of the street.

2 That would be far too simple a
view.

3 This is profoundly encouraging.

4 I saw him yesterday.

5 There's a man at the door.

Here are some more sentences. The beginning of the "head" is marked with an
apostrophe ( ' ) and the nuclear syllable is in bold type.:
1 Is 'John going to the dance tomorrow?
2 Do you 'think it will work?
3 Is there 'anyone there?
4 Are you 'sure it's right?
5 Is 'that Mr Burnett?
6 'When do you think it'll be ready?
7 'Why did he do it?
8 So 'what do we do now?
9 'Where are my trousers?
10 'When's the next bus to town?
(expressing surprise, seeking
confirmation :)
11 When's the next bus to town?
12 Who did you say is coming?
13 Where are my trousers? (In the
fridge?)

Fall-rise intonation pattern
We have looked briefly at how intonation can be used to express the speaker's
attitude. I would now like to turn to another intonation pattern, the "fall-rise".
Though it is much less common than the falling and rising tunes, it is nonetheless
an important pattern.
In fact there are two related intonation patterns which I want to look at here. The
first is the "fall-rise", the second the "fall plus rise". These two tunes are used in
approximately 15% of utterances (Gimson).
Let's look at fall-rise intonation first. This intonation pattern is used to draw
particular attention to an element of the utterance, often to suggest a possible
contrast. Here is an example. The sentence in brackets is there to provide a context.
The fall-rise tune is on "can" :
(Will you come round for a drink before you leave?) I will if I can.
The suggestion here is "I would like to come and will do my best, but I can't
promise anything because I might not be able to", or something like that. Here's
another example.
(Was John at the meeting last week?) I think so.
The suggestion here is "I think he was but I'm not entirely sure".
And here's another example with a slightly different meaning :
(I though John's family were very nice people, didn't you?) Well, I liked his sister.
The suggestion being that the rest of John's family didn't make such a favourable
impression ... You can also use this tune when you need to contradict somebody.
(You didn't do the washing up last night!) I did!
You can also use it when giving warnings, such as :
Careful! You'll miss your train.
Now, look at how this tune can be applied to one single word :

or over a group of words :

Now, here are some examples.
Will you have lunch with me tomorrow? - I will if I can.
John never watches television. - No, but Clare does!
I'll see you at the match on Wednesday. - Thursday.
The people here are very friendly. - Some of them are.
What a nice man he is! - Nice (You can't be serious - he's a thoroughly nasty piece of
work!)
Can I come and get my books tomorrow? - You can come. (But I can't give you the
books; I'm afraid I've lost them!)
Can I come to the party with Arthur? - You can come. (But I don't want that lout
Arthur in my house.)
Do I have to take my driving licence with me? - You don't have to. (But it would be
better if you did.)
What else did you expect him to do? - I suppose he didn't have any choice. (But I am
only prepared to admit it grudgingly and reluctantly, and I'm still not entirely
convinced there was no alternative.)
"Fall plus rise" intonation pattern
This pattern is used in information groups with two related centres of interest. The
first of the two is usually the more important. Here is an example :
(Why don't you phone headquarters?) - I've already tried that.

(I talked to him about it over a game of chess) - I didn't know you played chess.

(I thought she looked happy tonight) - She seemed unhappy to me

The third example is taken from QUIRK et al. This is how he explains the use of the
fall-plus-rise tune in this sentence :
"Here the two nuclei enable us to say (a) that she seemed unhappy (contrary to the
suggestion of someone else), and (b) that this is the speaker's personal view : of
course there may be others."8[8]
Here are some examples:

8[8]QUIRK et al, A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, 1985, p1601
I thought she looked happy tonight. - She looked unhappy to me.
I talked to him about it over a game of chess.- I didn't know you played chess.
Everybody thinks she's marvellous. - Well I don't think so.
Which one should I take? - Well this one's the best.
Maybe you misunderstood him. - No, I'm sure he said six.
It's a pretty complex system. - Oh, it looks simple to me.
At last! - I told you I was going to be late.
I gather you didn't quite follow. - Well it's the conclusion I didn't understand.
I hear he's unhappy about the project. - It's the cost he's bothered about.