Fonética y Fonología II - Unidad 1 PDF

UNIDAD 1 FONÉTICA Y FONOLOGÍA II
Año: 2do
Diseño: Prof. Mónica Lorenzo
Prof. Cecilia A. Zemborain
Tutora: Prof. Cecilia A. Zemborain
Ciclo lectivo: 2018
UNIT 1
Aims
✓ To have broader look at key phonological features affecting
speech in general.
✓ To become aware of the nature of these phonological features
affecting longer stretches of speech.
✓ To make adjustments in the oral production of these aspects.
Contents
✓ Suprasegmental features.
✓ Length, pitch and loudness
✓ Rhythm: stress-timing and syllable-timing. Pedagogical
implications.
✓ Stress: some word-stress rules. Stress pattern variations in
speech. Stress and prominence.
✓ Prominence.
CONTENTS
Welcome To The Next Level! ............................................................................................................. 1

Suprasegmental Features ................................................................................................................... 3
Length .................................................................................................................................................. 4
Loudness .............................................................................................................................................. 5
Pitch ..................................................................................................................................................... 5
Stress .................................................................................................................................................... 9
Rhythm............................................................................................................................................... 16
Prominence........................................................................................................................................ 22
Final Task ......................................................................................................................................... 27
See You In The Next Unit! ............................................................................................................... 29
Self-Assessment ................................................................................................................................. 29
Written And Oral Practice ................................................................................................................ 30
Key To The Written Exercises .......................................................................................................... 32
Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................... 40
Phonetics & Phonology II
WELCOME TO THE NEXT LEVEL!

SELF-ASSESSMENT: The story so far
Let’s start with a look at the knowledge and abilities you have already acquired concerning the key topics
of this subject. Tick the boxes as appropriate.
TOPIC I know this topic I know this topic I need to revise

very well quite well this topic
Speech Chunks: tone
units, syllables and
phonemes.
The importance of
stress – Word and
sentence stress.
Main differences
between vowel and
consonant sounds
Consonant sounds:
their articulation,
classification and
main characteristics.
Vowel sounds and
diphthongs: their
articulation,
classification and
main characteristics.
The Phonemic
Alphabet: recognizing
and producing all the
sounds.
Still with some

ABILITIES Very well Quite well
difficulty
I can read a text in phonemic script.
I can transcribe a text into phonemic script.
I can produce (orally) all the phonemes of English.
I can produce phonemic differences in words (cat

vs. cut, for instance).
I can recognize all the sounds of English when I
hear them.
I can stress words.
1
Why is this necessary? Because the more aware you are of your own strong and weak points, the
more you can keep things under control. It is good to be happy about our achievements, and to be
permanently concerned about our weaknesses, because only by knowing what they are will we be
able to work on them so as to improve.
The core of Phonetics and Phonology I was undoubtedly the description and classification of
the phonemes of English, the “basic building materials”1 with which we construct language, and the
practice of their accurate articulation. At times, though, attention was focused on other issues
which, though still needing the phoneme as their constituent material, went beyond it, or affected
groups of phonemes: you discussed the tone unit as a unit of speech made up of a flow of
phonemes, and stress as a feature of syllables, also made up of phonemes. That is, you discussed
mainly phonetic issues, as well as some phonological aspects that will need further exploration now.
We are, then, moving on to new grounds. Grounds that will still be starred by the phoneme, but
which will imply adjustments in their production. Why this should be so is very straightforwardly
explained by Celce-Murcia et al2:
“Sounds are rarely produced [in isolation]; rather, they are influenced by the environment in
which they occur – by their position within a word and by the sounds that precede or follow them.”
A major implication of this is that there are, then, different levels of analysis of the speech
phenomena, as they are studied by Phonetics and Phonology. When we study the description and
classification of phonemes, we are at the purely phonetic level, the core of the first Module of this
subject. But we have to agree that remaining there will not guarantee our accurate handling of what
happens in real-life speech. We need to move on to the syllable as a flow of phonemes. This is
where the influence of the environment mentioned by Celce-Murcia begins. We find here two main
issues: the way in which phonemes are mutually affected as they flow, and the question of stress as
a feature of syllables. We are already going more specifically into phonological issues.
Yet another level, to which we will come back in detail in the following units of this course, has
to do with the connection of syllables (or words) to make up speech, the way in which the sounds –
especially at the beginning and end of syllables/words – are affected by the sounds at the beginning
or end of the neighbouring syllables/words. And last, but not least, it is necessary to explore the
1
Celce-Murcia et al: Teaching Pronunciation, C.U.P., 2010, p. 50.
2
Ibid, p. 77.
2
nature of other features, which, in affecting sets of sounds, rather than sounds in isolation,
contribute to giving the tone unit its final contour. These are called suprasegmental features.
All these speech characteristics operate at the same time in speech; that is to say, the syllables
that make up a tone unit are at the same time affected by different phonetic features of the
phonemes they comprise, different stress patterns, word-boundary features, manifestations of pitch
and tone. The order in which we study them responds more to a need to structure the components in
a practical, user-friendly manner, than to a strictly sequential reason. This is why we think it is
convenient to start this course with a discussion of the suprasegmental features we have just
mentioned. This will give you a broad, general look at, and practice of, oral English as it occurs in
real life, un-segmented, delivered in tone units. In later units, we will discuss the other features
mentioned, those affecting the smallest segments – the phonemes. But doing this after having
practised suprasegmental issues, will give you a clearer notion of where and how – in the broader
picture of speech – those phenomena are important.
At the same time, we will devote part of the practice in this first unit to recycling the concepts
you studied in Module I by doing some oral and written work based on such issues. After working
on these tasks, you will send a diagnostic Mandatory Assignment to your Tutor, which will help us
establish solid grounds on which to base what comes next in this subject. On to it, then.
ON YOUR OWN: PRE-READING TASK
Before you start studying this unit, it would be a good idea to browse the
Internet a bit in order to find information on English Suprasegmental
Features. Here are some suggestions, but you may find other sites as well:
http://www.developingteachers.com/articles_tchtraining/supra2_scott.htm
(an article by a teacher called Scott Shelton)
http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test2materials/prosody.htm
As you read, find answers to these questions:

1) What are suprasegmental features?
2) Which are the main suprasegmental features of English?
3) How does Scott Shelton justify the convenience of “beginning with
suprasegmental features in pronunciation teaching”?
3
LESSON 1: SUPRASEGMENTAL FEATURES

Utterances can be produced with more or less emphasis or prominence, they can be said with a pitch
pattern that starts low and ends high, or one that starts high and ends low, or they can have a more,
or less rhythmical rendition, etc. In order to analyse these features, we have to pass on to a new
level, one that goes beyond the level of the segments (phonemes), and which is then referred to as
the suprasegmental level.
“Such features generally extend over stretches of utterances longer than just one sound and are
hence often referred to as suprasegmentals.” (Alan Cruttenden) 3
Suprasegmental features (sometimes also called prosodic features), then, may extend over stretches
of speech of varying lengths: two segments may already make up a different kind of unit - a syllable
-, and features such as stress or prominence, which affect syllables, are then suprasegmental
features. Longer stretches, such as rhythmical feet and tone units, are the domain of other kinds of
suprasegmental features, such as rhythm or intonation. Three basic features that greatly contribute
to the manifestations of other suprasegmentals and are therefore of major importance are length,
loudness, and pitch. It should be very clear that, in studying these features, we are dealing with
sound contrasts that, strictly speaking, do not have to do with differences between phonemes, and
which are, thus, the field of Phonology.
LENGTH
“The relative duration of a number of successive syllables or the duration of a given syllable in one
environment relative to the duration of the same syllable in another environment.”
(Alan Cruttenden)4
What we are talking about here is the length of time a speaker decides to continue to produce a
linguistic unit (a syllable, for instance), or the length of time the listener hears that unit. There is not
much difference between the production and the perception of length. In this sense, length is the
simplest of the features. But on the other hand, its relevance is difficult to assess because, as you
have already studied, it cannot be considered an absolute value. We cannot, for example, say with
absolute certainty that stressed syllables are longer than unstressed syllables. They may be so to
some extent, but we have to consider other influences: the innate length of vowels (  vs.  for
3
Alan Cruttenden: Intonation, CUP, Cambridge, 1986, 1997, p. 1
4
Alan Cruttenden, op. cit., p. 2.
4
example), the influence that neighbouring sounds can have on that innate length (in syllables closed
by a fortis consonant,  will be shorter than in syllables closed by a lenis consonant. Cf. 
vs. , for instance), the fact that open syllables – syllables occurring before silence, at the end
of an utterance – are generally longer, etc.
LOUDNESS
“Loudness as perceived by the listener is related to the breath-force which the speaker uses.”
(Alan Cruttenden)5
Very straightforwardly, then, loudness has to do with how loud the hearer perceives that the speaker
has produced the syllable or number of successive syllables he has uttered. Cruttenden adds: “The
acoustic correlate of loudness is intensity or the amount of energy which is present in a sound or
sequence of sounds, variations in intensity being produced by variations in the pressure of air
coming from the lungs.”6 Again, as with length, the absolute value of loudness and intensity is
difficult to assess, because these features may also be influenced by different factors. For instance,
open vowels are produced with greater intensity than close vowels, or we may produce louder
syllables simply because we are angry, or we want to be emphatic. Finally, the relationship between
intensity and loudness – that is between the actual speaker’s breath-force and the listener’s
perception of that breath-force – is not linear. Cruttenden says that “a sound has to be much more
than doubled in absolute intensity before it will be heard as twice as loud.”7
PITCH
Pitch could be roughly defined as the level of the voice, and it is the feature most closely related to
intonation. Pitch depends on the frequency with which the vocal folds vibrate to produce voice: the
more rapidly, the higher the pitch perceived. So, for instance, Prof. Gimson explains this time, “in
the typical speaking voice of a man, this opening and closing action [of the vocal folds] is likely to
be repeated between 100 and 150 times in a second, i.e. there are that number of vibration cycles
per second (cps); in the case of a woman’s voice, this frequency of vibration might well be between
200 and 325 cps. We are able, within limits, to vary the speed of vibration of our vocal folds, or, in
other words, are able consciously to change the pitch of the voice produced in the larynx.”8
5
Ibid, p. 2.
6
Ibid, p. 3
7
Ibid
8
A. C. Gimson: An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English, Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd., 1980, pp. 12, 13.
5
As we have said, the pitch of the voice plays the most important part in the production of intonation.
READING
Read this extract from Peter Roach: English Phonetics and Phonology9, where he
discusses the importance of pitch.
“Only in very unusual situations do we speak with fixed, unvarying pitch,

and when we speak normally the pitch of our voice is constantly changing.
One of the most important tasks in analysing intonation is to listen to the
speaker’s pitch and recognise what it is doing; this is not an easy thing
to do, and it seems to be a quite different skill from that acquired in
studying segmental phonetics. We describe pitch in terms of high and low,
and some people find it difficult to relate what they hear in someone’s
voice to a scale ranging from low to high. We should remember that “high”
and “low” are arbitrary choices for end-points of the pitch scale. […]
People who have difficulty in “hearing” intonation patterns are generally
only having difficulty in relating what they hear (which is the same as
what everyone else hears) to this “pseudo-spatial” representation.
It is very important to make the point that we are not interested in all
aspects of a speaker’s pitch; the only things that should interest us are
those which carry some linguistic information. If a speaker tries to talk
while riding fast on a horse, the speaker’s pitch will make a lot of sudden
rises and falls as a result of the irregular movement; this is something
which is outside the speaker’s control and therefore cannot be
linguistically significant. Similarly, if we take two speakers at random we
will almost certainly find that one speaker typically speaks with lower
pitch than the other; the difference between the two speakers is not
linguistically significant because their habitual pitch level is determined
by their physical structure. But individual speakers do have control over
their own pitch, and may choose to speak with a higher than normal pitch;
this is something which is potentially of linguistic significance.
We have established that for pitch differences to be linguistically

significant, it is a necessary condition that they should be under the
speaker’s control. There is another necessary condition and that is that a
pitch difference must be perceptible; it is possible to detect differences
in the frequency of the vibration of a speaker’s voice by means of
9
Peter Roach: English Phonetics and Phonology, CUP, Cambridge, 2009, pp. 119, 120.
6
laboratory instruments, but these differences may not be great enough to be
heard by a listener as differences in pitch.”
QUICK CHECK
Listen to this recording of the song “Do Re Mi” from the movie The Sound of Music
(“La novicia rebelde” in Spanish). Below are the lyrics: just try to sing along and
make sure you are changing the pitch of your voice so as to produce all the notes
like the characters do. (If you have the chance, you may also want to watch the film,
so that you can see how the protagonist helps the children understand the concept of
notes and pitch.) [Open the Rec 1-2_Pitch2-DoReMi.mp3 audio file to do this
activity.]
Do Re Mi
Let's start at the very beginning
A very good place to start
When you read you begin with - A - B - C
When you sing you begin with DO - RE - MI
DO - RE - MI , DO - RE - MI
The first three notes just happen to be
DO - RE - MI DO - RE - MI
DO - RE - MI - FA - SO - LA - TI...
(Oh let's see if I can make this easier)
DO - a deer, a female deer
RE - a drop of golden sun
MI - a name, I call myself
FA - a long long way to run
SO - a needle pulling thread
LA - a note to follow SO
TI - a drink with jam and bread
That will bring us back to do...
DO - RE - MI - FA - SO - LA - TI - DO! - SO - DO!
7
QUICK CHECK
Now, to check your comprehension of the notes so far, match the two halves
of the sentences below: (»» Quick Check 2 Key, p. 30)
1. Length is related to units such as breath-force

2. Loudness is perceived as a speaker’s intensity
3. Pitch is produced by the varying a syllable or succession of
4. Length is a syllables
5. Pitch is usually measured in terms of relative value
these dimensions: rate of vocal fold vibration
6. Variations in the air pressure coming pitch
from the lungs are known as loudness
7. Certain attitudes (such as anger, “high” or “low”
emphasis, etc.) can be expressed by
varying degrees of
8. The feature most closely related to
intonation is
(Quick Check 2 Mod)
WRITTEN PRACTICE
Do Activity I. (»» Activity I, p. 26).
(Activity I Mod)
8
LESSON 2: STRESS
Stress is a suprasegmental feature simply because it affects units that are longer than just a phoneme
or segment: it affects syllables. That is, in English we say that the first syllable in “feature” is
stressed, for example. And, though it is true that some syllables may be made up of only one
phoneme (“are” , for instance), most syllables are made up of two or more phonemes.
You have been using stress practically since the beginning of your phonetic training, and you have
already discovered how important the stress/unstress distinction is in helping you decide on the
phonetic characteristics of phonemes: fortis plosives in stressed syllables may be aspirated when
followed by a vowel, unstressed syllables may take weak forms, etc. However, your use of stress
has been rather intuitive, since – though you did study some general characteristics of English word
stress in the Phonology I Module – not much systematic training has been provided so far on how it
really works in English. The moment seems to have come for such precision.
Before we start, though, one further issue needs to be clarified. What we are about to discuss is the
nature of word stress, that is, “we are looking at words as they are said in isolation, which is a rather
artificial situation – we do not often say words in isolation, except for a few such as ‘yes’, ‘no’,
‘possibly’, ‘please’, and interrogative words such as ‘what’, ‘who’, etc., but looking at words in
isolation does help us to see stress placement and stress levels more clearly than studying them in
the context of continuous speech.”10 And apart from this reason mentioned by Prof. Roach, we have
to add the fact that learning about word stress will be useful for the discussion of the rest of the
suprasegmental features we are going to study: rhythm, prominence, intonation. This will become
clear to you when we get there.
In order to discuss this feature, you will have to read two chapters from Peter Roach: English
Phonetics & Phonology. As you read, you may find it useful to follow the guidelines below and to
do the “Quick Checks” to verify you are getting the gist of it. This said, then, now it is your turn to
do some reading on your own.
10
Peter Roach, op. cit., p. 87.
9
ON YOUR OWN:
Read the whole of Chapter 10: “Stress in simple words”, from Peter
Roach: English Phonetics & Phonology.
Make sure the following ideas are very clear to you after reading the
chapter:
• The features that contribute to making a syllable prominent.
• The aspects of words that need to be taken into account when
analysing word stress.
• The difference between simple, complex and compound words.
When all of this is clear, you can do the following “Quick Check”.
TIP:
You have to bear in mind that, when we talk about two-
or three-syllable words, we think of syllable division as you
find it in the pronunciation dictionary. In order to
understand, then, the rules for word stress in the book, you
will probably need to resort to your dictionary to check
where exactly syllable boundaries are.
A further aspect that should be clarified has to do with
levels of stress: in this course, we will not need to consider
more than two levels – primary and secondary –, and the
latter only when referring to compound words and stress
shifts, as you will study when you read the next chapter on
stress.
QUICK CHECK
Look at the words below and do the following things:
1) Transcribe them into phonetic spelling.
2) Stress them, following the rules for two- and three-syllable word stress
you have read in the chapter (check syllable boundaries in the dictionary if
necessary).
3) Account for your choice of stress pattern. (»» Quick Check 3 Key, p. 31)
VERBS NOUNS ADJECTIVES
protect career correct
bellow patrol sublime
detest disciple complete
collect holocaust sudden
conquer transistor excellent
abandon cathedral decent
10
(Quick Check 3 Mod)
TIP:
It is true that a very practical thing to do when in doubt
about the stress pattern of a word is to resort to the
dictionary – a practice you should never give up! However,
the purpose of knowing what is behind the stress pattern of
words is for you to become aware of the type of factors you
need to consider when you have to decide on your own
where to stress a new word – the dictionary is not always at
hand! In this way, your intuition will be more solidly
grounded.
We will now pass on to the discussion of stress in complex words. As you did above, use the
following guidelines for a better understanding of the text, and do the “Quick Checks” suggested as
you read.
ON YOUR OWN:
Read points 11.1, 11.2 and 11.3 in Chapter 11: “Complex word stress”,
from Peter Roach: English Phonetics & Phonology.
Make sure the following ideas are very clear to you after reading:
• In which three ways may affixes affect the stress pattern of complex
words?
• Learn the stress pattern of the words taking suffixes of very frequent
occurrence, such as “-ese”, “-able”, “-ish”, “-graphy”, etc.
11
QUICK CHECK
1) Add a suffix to each of the words below so as to form a noun. Mark the
stress pattern in the original word and in the word you write, and then say
“Yes” if the stress changes when the suffix is added, and “No” if it
doesn’t. The first one has been done for you as an example:
Your noun Does stress change with suffix?

a/ inform information Yes
b/ helpless ………………….. …………………..
c/ organise ………………….. …………………..
d/ injure ………………….. …………………..
e/ appoint ………………….. …………………..
f/ inferior ………………….. …………………..
2) Now, add a suffix to the words below in order to form an adjective.

Again, mark the stress pattern in the original word and in the word you
write, and then say “Yes” if the stress changes when the suffix is added,
and “No” if it doesn’t. (»» Quick Check 4 Key, p. 32)
g/ marvel .......................... ………………….

h/ length .......................... ………………….
i/ yellow .......................... ………………….
j/ Senegal .......................... ………………….
k/ surprise .......................... ………………….
(Quick Check 4 Mod)
12
QUICK CHECK
Each of the groups of words below contains:
1. a stress-neutral suffix (SN) – that is, one that does not affect the stress
pattern of the word;
2. a stress-imposing suffix (SI) – that is, one that produces a shift of stressed
syllable in the stem; or
3, a stressed suffix (S) –that is, one that takes the stress itself.
But they are not in the same order in every group. In each group, mark which
words contain which type of suffix. The first one is done for you as an
example. (»» Quick Check 5 Key, p. 32)
A. ˈclimate cliˈmatic 2. SI
ˈPortugal Portuˈguese 3. S
ˈpoison ˈpoisonous 1. SN
B. launder launderette
comfort comfortable
period periodical
C. punctual punctuality
wide widen
mountain mountaineer
D. cigar cigarette
economy economic
sympathy sympathise
E. punish punishment
picture picturesque
proverb proverbial
(Quick Check 5 Mod)
This exercise, from Clare Fletcher: Longman Pronunciation Dictionary – Study Guide, Longman,
1990, p. 64.
ON YOUR OWN:
Read points 11.4 and 11.5 in Chapter 11: “Complex word stress”, from Peter
Roach: English Phonetics & Phonology.
Make sure that you:
• understand what compound words are;
• can systamatise the stress patterns for each of the types of compounds
presented in the text;
• understand how the stress shift process works.
13
QUICK CHECK
1) In the following sentences, underline the stressed syllable in the
compound highlighted in each case: (»» Quick Check 6 Key, p. 33)
1/ She’s so self-centred!
2/ He’s a self-made man, they say.
3/ She married a middle-aged man.
4/ He’s a good-looking chap, though.
5/ I used to work for a very bad-tempered boss.
6/ Luckily, my class was very well-behaved.
7/ The president was assassinated by a cold-blooded murderer.
Is the stress always on the same element in the compound? Can you explain
why?
2) Make up pairs of sentences that show how each of the following words
can have two different stress patterns. The first one has been done for
you as an example:
a/ absent-minded: 1. He gave me an ˈabsent-minded ˈlook.

2. She’s awfully absent-ˈminded.
b/ Latin American
c/ New York
d/ left-handed
e/ audio-visual
f/ soft-hearted
(Quick Check 6 Mod)
ON YOUR OWN:
Read point 11.6 in Chapter 11: “Complex word stress”, from Peter Roach:
English Phonetics & Phonology.
Make sure that you understand how stress shift works across word classes in the
set of two-syllable words presented here. Then, do the following “Quick Check”.
14
QUICK CHECK
You will hear the words below. You will have to:
a. Mark the stress where you hear it;
b. Write on the dotted line next to each word the word-class to which it
belongs, according to its stress pattern.
The first one has been done for you as an example. [Open the Rec 1-
3_Stress.mp3 audio file to do this activity.] (»» Quick Check 7 Key, p.
33)
ˈrebel Noun
decrease ..........................
protest ..........................
conflict ..........................
abstract ..........................
escort ..........................
increase ..........................
contest ..........................
permit ..........................
present ..........................
perfect ............................
insult ............................
(Quick Check 7 Mod)
WRITTEN PRACTICE
Do Activity II. (»» Activity II, p. 27).
(Activity II Mod)
15
LESSON 3: RHYTHM
ON YOUR OWN
Read point 14.1 Rhythm in Unit 14: Aspects of Connected Speech, in Peter
Roach: English Phonetics and Phonology. Then go on reading below and do the
activities suggested.
READING
Now go on reading about rhythm. The following extracts are from Michael McCarthy:
Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers.11
This first part is a bit more on rhythmic feet, about which you have already read in Peter Roach:
English Phonetics and Phonology:
“Utterances can be divided up into groups of syllables that have more or

less the same duration, called feet (a foot as a unit must contain one
stressed syllable). Within each foot, syllables will be “stretched out” or
“squeezed together”, depending on how many there are, to maintain the
rhythmic time span, as in:
/ /  /   /    /
Walk down the path to the end of the ca nal
where the first foot has no weak beat, the second has one, the third has
two, the fourth has three and the last one has none, but where all the feet
are perceived to be of more or less the same duration.”
QUICK CHECK
Divide the following utterances into rhythmic feet, using / and – to indicate
stressed and unstressed syllables respectively, as in the example above: (»»
Quick Check 8 Key, p. 34)
1/ They went to the beach in the morning.
2/ What’s up with this stupid machine?
3/ Tom thought that Frank knew.
4/ He works at the supermarket in the corner.
(Quick Check 8 Mod)
11
Michael McCarthy: Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers, CUP, Cambridge, 1991, pp. 90, 91, 92.
16
GIVE IT A QUICK THOUGHT

• Are all the utterances you analysed in the exercise above equally rhythmical?
• Do you think we always speak in very neat rhythmical feet – feet consisting
of equally long intervals that could be tapped along at regular beats?
• Can you think of contexts in which we probably are more rhythmical, and others in
which we are less so?
READING
Read on from Michael McCarthy: Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers.12
“In fact, instrumental analysis may reveal that the ‘beats’ are anything
but precisely regular in real time and as we shall see, there are problems
with such an account of rhythm. Nonetheless, the overall experience of
rhythm is still often present. This general feeling we shall refer to as
rhythmicality. (See Couper-Kuhlen 1986: 55)
“Traditionally, rhythm has been considered an important element in the

teaching of spoken English. This is probably due to two main factors.
Firstly, there does seem to be rhythmicality in varying degrees in long
stretches of speech, especially carefully considered deliveries such as
broadcast talks, fluent reading aloud, speeches and monologues, as well as
some ordinary conversation. Secondly, the concept of English as a stressed-
timed language, deeply rooted in theoretical and applied linguistics, has
dominated approaches to the teaching of rhythm.
To take the second factor first, the notion that the languages of the world
can be classified according to rhythmic criteria has persisted throughout
this century. The principal distinction is made between stress-timing and
syllable-timing. Broadly speaking, languages such as English and Arabic are
said to have more or less equal time spans (or interstresses) between
stressed syllables, so that any intervening syllables, the number of which
may vary, are made to fit into the available space between stresses.
Stressed syllables are longer in duration than unstressed ones. Languages
such as French and Spanish, on the other hand, have regular syllable length
for both stressed and unstressed syllables, and are thus timed according to
their syllables, or syllable timed. While this distinction may correspond
to some strongly felt perception of the different characteristic rhythms of
languages, there is little hard instrumental evidence for it. In fact, in
12
Op. cit.
17
recent years, quite a lot of convincing counter-evidence has been
presented.
[…] We are forced to conclude, therefore, that the notion that English is
stress-timed is unproven, and that perceptions of rhythmicality may have
their origins in other phenomena of connected speech.
[…] The idea of stress timing has been reinforced by a phonological

tradition concerned with analysing literary texts, careful readings,
broadcast talks and the like. Natural conversation certainly does not lend
itself to regular rhythm-tapping, even though the flow of talk is
punctuated (often regularly) with perceived stresses, and the business of
spontaneous speech production hardly gives time for careful rhythmic pre-
planning and “keeping the beat”.
GIVE IT A QUICK THOUGHT
 What’s the point, then, of rhythm exercises such as chants, rap, rhymes that
come in textbooks, especially those for very young learners?
 Do you think that you could profit from this kind of practice – reproducing
utterances following a carefully timed pattern? If you think so, how?
You will find a justification for these issues in the last paragraph of Point 14.1
Rhythm, in Peter Roach: English Phonetics and Phonology.
READING
Celce-Murcia et al.13 have this to say about syllable- vs. stress-timing:
Note to teachers
“Maintaining a regular beat from stressed element to stressed element and
reducing the intervening unstressed syllables can be very difficult for
students whose native tongue has syllable-timed rhythm patterns. In these
syllable-timed languages (such as French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and
many African languages), rhythm is a function of the number of syllables in
a given phrase, not the number of stressed elements. Thus unlike English,
phrases with an equal number of syllables take roughly the same time to
13
Marianne Celce-Murcia et al. : Teaching Pronunciation ; C.U.P., 2010, p. 153.
18
produce, and the stress received by each syllable is much more even than in
English:
. . . . . . ...
Spanish Los li-bros es-tán en la me-sa.
. . . . ..(.)
French Les livres sont sur la ta-ble.
. . . . . ..
English The books are on the ta-ble.
As a result of these differences in stress level and syllable length,

learners from syllable-timed language backgrounds tend to stress syllables
in English more equally, without giving sufficient stress to the main words
and without sufficiently reducing unstressed syllables.
TIP:
You should have noticed by now how rhythm is related to
stress: rhythmic beats tend to occur only on the stressed
syllables of words (mainly on primary stress, but
occasionally, also on secondary or even tertiary stress). If
there is a rhythmic beat on the word “different”, for
example, this will be on the first syllable (“di-“), which is
the stressed syllable of the word in isolation.
As you can see from all you have read, then, different authors place more, or less emphasis on
rhythm training, according probably to their idea of how practical this is, based on the evidence
available. In order to round off these ideas, here are a few generalizations:
• We cannot say that English is 100% stress-timed – there is no instrumental evidence to support
such a statement. However, there seems to be some “perceptual” rhythmicality, that is, we tend
to perceive English speech as rhythmical to some extent, as a consequence of the fact that there
certainly are stressed and unstressed (strong and weak) syllables, and that unstressed syllables
tend to be produced more quickly, with a less pure vowel quality, less loudly – all of which
may contribute to the “squeezing in” effect that we perceive –, and stressed syllables, on the
contrary, have more prominence, are louder and contain vowels in their pure quality, all of
which, again, contribute to the “stretching out” effect that we perceive.
19
• All of the above, however, does not rule out the fact that rhythm training may have necessary
and useful pedagogical consequences:
✓ in the first place, because rhymes, chants, raps, songs are literary pieces – and quite
canonical as such – in themselves, and it is therefore quite normal and frequent for us to read
these with our students;
✓ next, because, as Roach, and also Celce-Murcia et al. said, Spanish speakers tend to produce
an all-strong-form oral English when our attention is not drawn to the presence of strong/weak,
stressed/unstressed syllables;
✓ and finally, for the very practical reason that producing oral English with the “pressure” of
the regular beats may be good exercise to loosen up the tongue, and when properly guided,
these activities may be good fun as well.
QUICK CHECK
Listen to the short nursery rhyme below. Practise reading the lyrics until you are
satisfied that it flows naturally and at a regular rhythm. Then sing it along.
[Open the Rec 1-4_Rhyme1.mp3 audio file to do this activity.]
Hey, diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle,

The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed to see such fun
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
Notice the pattern of the beats in this rhyme (underlined in the text). Try
clapping your hands as you read it, with a clap at each of the underlined
syllables, and never altering the pace of the claps. Do it slowly at first, and
notice how you have to squeeze in some syllables at times (“and the dish”, for
instance), and stretch out some others at some other times (“laughed”, “see”,
etc.). Also, at the end of the second line, you need an “empty” clap so as to
make up for a missing weak syllable there.
Now do the same with this other “finger” (or toe) rhyme: [Open the Rec 1-
5_Rhyme2.mp3 audio file to do this activity.]
This little pig went to market,

This little pig stayed at home,
This little piggy had roast beef,
This little piggy had none.
And this little piggy went...
"Wee wee wee; I can’t find my way home!”.
20
ON YOUR OWN
You may want to read something on the history of the two rhymes above
at: http://www.rhymes.org.uk/
And you may also want to search for other rhymes or chants on the
Internet and practise producing them with the proper rhythm. Perhaps it
would be a good idea to start a collection of the ones you consider most
suitable to work with your students. Go to the page suggested above, or to
www.anglik.net/songsandrhymes.htm
or to so many other sites you will surely find, for more rhymes and ideas on how
to work with them.
WRITTEN PRACTICE
Do Activity III. (»» Activity III, p. 27)
(Activity III Mod)
21
LESSON 4: PROMINENCE
Prominence is a suprasegmental feature because, as is the case with stress, it affects syllables, and
in affecting a syllable of a word, it affects the whole word. The dictionary says that “something that
is prominent is very noticeable or important”14. This applies very well to what we mean by
prominence when talking about syllables or words: a syllable that is prominent is more noticeable
or important than the rest of the syllables in that word. In the tone unit below, we clearly realise
that, in the word “visited”, the first syllable “vi-“ is more noticeable than all the rest. Also, because
the syllable “vi-“ is prominent in the word “visited”, the word “visited” is more important than its
neighbouring words:
/i VIsited her YESterday /
where “yesterday” is also a very noticeable word (the syllables in CAPITAL letters are prominent).
So we can say that the most important words in this tone unit are “visited” and “yesterday”.
Now, what kind of importance are we talking about? The words “visited” and “yesterday” are
important from the point of view of the meaning they contribute, so much so that if the only parts
of this tone unit you heard were the words “visited” and “yesterday”, you could very well infer that
the speaker had visited someone the day before. As was the case with rhythm, you can also see here
that prominence is very closely related to stress, and that prominent syllables are always – and only
– the stressed syllables of a word (that is, no one would ever say * viSIted, or *yesterDAY.)
However, the reverse is not always the case. That is, not all stressed syllables need to be prominent
all the time. Thus, in:
/she got eXACtly the camera she WANTed /
you can see that there are a number of other syllables (“got”, “ca-” in “camera”, for instance) that
do not have any prominence in this context. This is because these words do not contribute any new
meaning in the context of the conversation that is in progress.
14
BBC English Dictionary, BBC English and HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 1993.
22
Another question that can be asked is: how do we produce prominence? How do we make a syllable
more noticeable than the others? You have already read an answer to these questions, and we
suggest that you should go back to your notes and read them again:
ON YOUR OWN:
Re-read point 10.1 in Chapter 10: “Stress in simple words”, from Peter Roach:
English Phonetics & Phonology.
Make sure that you understand the role played by loudness, length, pitch and quality
in the production and perception of prominence.
So, a prominent syllable is one that we perceive as louder or longer than, or different in pitch or
quality from its neighbouring syllables, each of these features contributing to prominence in
different degrees, and at the same time working in combination. The same could be said about the
production of prominence: if the speaker produces a syllable louder or longer than the neighbouring
syllables, for instance, the hearer will most probably perceive it as more prominent, though the
relationship between production and perception is not always linear.
You may have inferred by now that, if prominence is so closely related to meaning, it has a lot to do
with what the speaker wants to say, to the extent that Prof. Brazil makes it a point to emphasise that
“prominent syllables are not ‘reflexes’: we have to regard them as embodying speakers’
choices from known alternatives”15. So the same speaker could have chosen different
prominences for the same words in a different context:
/ she GOT exactly the CAmera she wanted / but didn’t get the mp3 with line-in system…
where the emphasis is more on what she got – as contrasted with what she didn´t get – and not on
the fact that it was just the thing she wanted, as the previous example seems to suggest. This is
because “in each case the speaker highlights [makes prominent] the words which he/she wants the
hearer to notice at that point in the conversation. At one point a word is very informative and at
another point the same words is less so.”16
Something else that can be inferred from what we have been saying so far, is that prominent
syllables tend to occur on words that carry meaning, that is, lexical items – verbs, nouns, adjectives,
adverbs: “camera”, “got”, “exactly”. However, though this is so in most cases, precisely because
15
David Brazil: The Communicative Value of Intonation in English, C.U.P., 1997, p. 31.
16
Barbara Bradford, Intonation in Context, Teacher’s. Book, C.U.P., 1988, pp. 11, 12.
23
prominence is a speaker’s choice, a function word could also be prominent at times, depending on
the context. So our speaker could very well say, in the proper context, something like this:
/ she got eXACtly the camera SHE wanted / but not the one Peter wanted…
where “she”, a function word, needs to be made prominent in order to contrast it with “Peter”. As
Michael McCarthy says, “the statement that lexical words are stressed [prominent] and
grammar/function words are not is only a general statistical tendency, not a rule.”17
After this simple introduction to prominence, we will read what Michael McCarthy has to say about
it:
READING
Read on from Michael McCarthy: Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers.18
“Syllables which stand out in the flow of talk, because the speaker has
uttered them with relatively greater intensity, or duration, or pitch
variation compared with surrounding syllables (and our perception of this
phenomenon will usually be due to a variety of such features), will be
referred to as prominent syllables (see Brazil 1985a and b). it is helpful
to have this special term, prominence, so as not to confuse word stress,
which words bear in their citation forms […] with what concerns us more
here: the choice of the speaker to make certain words salient by giving
prominence to syllables. […]
“When and why do speakers attach prominence to syllables and, thereby, to

the words that contain those syllables in their utterances? Consider the
following:
a CUP of TEA
the THIRD of April
WHERE’S the BREADknife?19
The non-prominent words (a, of, the) are, as it were, taken for granted;
they do not represent any choice from a list of alternatives: ‘a cup of
tea’ is not an alternative to ‘a cup by/from tea’ in most conceivable
17
Michael McCarthy, op. cit., p. 97.
18
Op. cit.
19
The underlined syllables in these examples indicate the “tonic syllables” within the tone units. The tonic syllable is
actually the most prominent syllable in the tone unit. We will study this in the next unit; for the time being, we are
interested only in the fact that these syllables are prominent.
24
circumstances. But, equally, ‘the breadknife’ is not in any real sense a
selection from my/your/a/Mrs Jones’s breadknife’ in most situations, since
the speaker assumes, or projects the assumption that the missing knife is
the one in normal use in the household and that it does not need to be
specially identified more than by the. There will, of course, be
circumstances in which speakers deem it necessary to make prominent items
which in most other circumstances can be taken as understood, as in:
NO, it’s part OF the course, NOT just an optional EXtra.

i can TAKE you right TO the door if you WISH.
In these two examples, words that are otherwise usually taken for granted
are signalled as significant selections by the speaker. [The second one]
could equally well have been rendered as ‘RIGHT to the DOOR’, but the
speaker has chosen to highlight the preposition to. It is this that is
meant by interactive choice as realised in prominence, as opposed to the
relatively stable patterns of word stress. So when we consider prominence
in discourse we are considering the extent to which speakers’ and
listeners’ worlds converge, and what is signalled as prominent (i.e.
selected by the speaker from a list of possible alternatives and projected
as a significant element of the message), as against that which can be
assumed as part of the taken-for-granted elements of the message.”
Prof. Brazil explains like this the importance of prominence: “As well as dividing up your speech
into tone units in different ways, you can vary the way you attach prominence to particular words.
[…] when you choose to put prominent syllables in some words but not others you are helping the
listener to follow your message. It helps them to know which words they should pay particular
attention to.”20
20
David Brazil: Pronunciation for Advanced Learners of English, C.U.P., 1994.
25
QUICK CHECK
To make this last point clear, Prof. Brazil suggested an exercise similar to the
one below. Here, then, we will try to discover why the speaker has chosen to
place prominence on the syllables in capital letters and how this should help
the listener to better understand the message.
Read the following transcript and then do the exercises below: (»» Quick
Check 9 Key, p. 35)
// we went to FRANCE on HOliday // LAST YEAR // we’d PLANNED to go
to the SOUTH // for TWO WEEKS // and of COURSE // we THOUGHT
we’d have a good TIME // but Everything // went ABsolutely WRONG //
from the very beGInning // and we STAYED ON // for FOUR weeks instead
// but NOT for PLEAsure // but because MUM // went down with FLU //
❖ Decide why these words have prominent syllables:
a holiday (in // we went to FRANCE on HOliday // )

b south (in // we’d PLANNED to go to the SOUTH // )
c on (in // and we STAYED ON // )
d four (in // for FOUR weeks instead // )
e mum (in // but because MUM // )
❖ Now decide why these words do not have prominent syllables:
f on (in // we went to FRANCE on HOliday // )

g good (in // we THOUGHT we’d have a good TIME // )
h went (in // went ABsolutely WRONG // )
i weeks (in // for FOUR weeks instead // )
(Quick Check 9 Mod)
ON YOUR OWN:
After this introduction to the notion of Prominence, you are ready to work
through Unit 1: “Highlighting”, in Barbara Bradford’s Intonation in
Context. There you will find plenty of practice activities that will help you
develop a better understanding of the way in which this very important
suprasegmental feature works.
It is essential for you to work with the tape here. Just follow the rubric for
each of the exercises, and READ ALOUD AND SPEAK as instructed
there. This is mainly ORAL PRACTICE. And we meet at the forum for any
doubts you might have!
WRITTEN PRACTICE
Do Activity IV. (»» Activity IV, p. 27)
26
(Activity IV Mod)
FINAL TASK (»» Final Task Key, p. 35)

This task is non-mandatory. You do not have to send it to your tutor. However, it is a good rounding
off of the topics
SUPRASEGMENTAL FEATURES
1 STRESS
A / Read the following list of words and do the following:

• add a suffix to each of the words to form an adjective, noun or adverb;
• mark the stress in the original word and the related word you write;
• say what type of suffix you added (whether it is a stress neutral SN suffix, a stress-imposing SI
suffix, or a stressed S suffix.)
Example: ˈclimate cliˈmatic (SI)
economy ……………………….. ………..

poison ……………………….. ………
China ……………………….. ……….
sympathy ……………………….. ……….
punish ……………………….. ……….
B / Study these two examples:
ˈJones, the Vice-ˈPresident ˈVice-President ˈJones
Why is the word vice-president stressed differently in both cases?
2 RHYTHM
A / Divide the following sentences up into feet, using the / mark as a boundary symbol. If a sentence
starts with an unstressed syllable, leave it out of consideration – it doesn´t belong in a foot.
a) A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

b) Computers consume a considerable amount of money and time.
B / Practise reading the following rhymes:
Jack and Jill Betty Bodder bought some butter. Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie,
went up the hill “But”, she said, “this butter’s bitter. kissed the girls and made them cry.
to fetch a pail of water. If I put it in my batter When the boys came out to play,
Jack fell down it will make my batter bitter.” Georgie Porgie ran away.
and broke his crown So she bought a bit of butter
and Jill came tumbling after. Better than her bitter butter,
and she put it in her batter,
And her batter wasn’t bitter.
So ‘twas better Betty Bodder
bought a bit of better butter.
27
3 PROMINENCE
Read the following short dialogues: you’ll work with B’s responses only. Highlight the words B
would make most noticeable in each of his/her responses.
1. A: When did you last see Jane?
B: I saw her last month.
A: And are you seeing her again soon?
B: Yes. I’m seeing her again this week. In fact, I’m seeing her tomorrow..
2. A: Are the Joneses happy in their new neighbourhood?

B: No. They’re going to move.
3. A: Will you be at the meeting on Monday evening?

B: Yes. I’m not going away till Tuesday morning.
(Final Task Mod)
28
SEE YOU IN THE NEXT UNIT!

We hope this unit has helped you to set about working on the subject again. We meant for you to
start transcribing into phonemic spelling again, and reading and speaking English with special
attention on your pronunciation. We also meant to provide you with a general look at the features
that contribute to giving real-life speech its final shape. We are aware that a lot more could be said
and practised, but we feel this is as much as is reasonable to do on a distance mode course. Of
course, a discussion of suprasegmental features is incomplete without a proper presentation of the
basic notions of Intonation, the feature that contributes the most meaning. Precisely because it is so
important, we will devote the whole of Unit 4 to it.
If you feel you have achieved the aims of this Unit, as stated at the beginning of it, you are ready
to keep on building on these concepts and abilities. Remember what the text you read in your
Mandatory Assignment said: learning to speak a second language requires a combination of
✓ hard work,
✓ a good ear,
✓ a strong desire to do it well,
✓ accurate information about the sound system.
We are trying to give you enough of the last point. All the rest is up to you! We count on your effort
and hard work. And we wish you all the best! Be seeing you very soon, then!
SELF-ASSESSMENT
Tick the boxes as appropriate:
TOPIC I know this topic I know this topic I need to revise

very well quite well this topic
The notion of
suprasegmental
features and its
importance for
pronunciation.
The implications of
length, loudness and
pitch on
pronunciation.
The use of stress in
English.
The importance of
29
rhythm.
WRITTEN AND ORAL PRACTICE

Activity I
Transcribe the following texts into phonemic spelling. Follow the conventions you are used to:
divide the text into tone units (long and short pauses), include weak forms and instances of linking
 where appropriate. You should take your time to do this task: re-read your final version in
order to spot any possible mistakes, check with your pronunciation dictionary any doubts you might
have. (»» Activity I Key, p. 30)
“What’s the time, please?”

“Six-thirty.”
“Thank you very much. Later than I thought.”
“Are you in a hurry?”
“Yes, I am, as a matter of fact. Got a train to catch.”
“What time?”
“Seven eleven. Forty minutes from now.”
“That should be all right. If there isn’t a traffic-jam. Usually we go quite
fast at this time of day.”
“Oh, good. If I’m late, things will be bad. Somebody’s meeting me at the other
end.”
“When’s the next train?”
“Over an hour later, I think.”
“Don’t worry. Fred’s doing well.”
“Who’s Fred?”
“Fred’s driving the bus. He’s a pal of mine. Lives next door, in fact… Look!
Here we are. Plenty of time for your train.”
“That’s fine. Nice to have met you.”
“Same here. Goodbye.” (126 words)
TRANSCRIPTION TIP:
Though correction of transcription/dictation errors
depends a lot on the nature of the problem, here is a practical
tip you may want to bear in mind: for a transcription
exercise to be within a reasonable standard, the number of
errors detected should not exceed 20% of the number of
words. (That is, if the text is 126 words long – as the one
above –, the number of errors should not exceed 24-25.)
The most serious errors are those involving the wrong
choice of phoneme – this will count as one error every time
30
it happens. Forgetting some feature (such as aspiration,

devoicing, etc.) at certain points of the text will count only
once – that is, if you forget to mark 2 or 3 aspiration
instances, this will be considered only one mistake.
However, it should be clear from the rest of your work that
you know how to use the feature in question, and that the
omissions have been only occasional slips.
Activity II
Transcribe the following text into phonetic spelling. Include the same features as in Activity I
above. (»» Activity II Key, p. 33)
Rosie: Where on earth are we? Don´t walk so fast, Matt. I can´t keep up.
Matt: Come on. We’ve got to keep going. It’s getting late.
Rosie: But where? We don´t know where we’re going!
Kelly: Let´s face it. We’re lost. We shouldn’t have left the group.
Rosie: Let’s have a look at the map.
Matt: We haven’t got one. If you two hadn’t been so impatient to get on
the coach, I’d have bought one before we left.
Kelly: Don´t blame us! It was your idea to come here!
Matt: Don´t keep on about it.
Kelly: I’m freezing. I wish I’d worn something warmer.
Rosie: I know what you mean. I think I’ve caught a cold. (117 words)
Activity III
Transcribe the following text into phonetic spelling. Include the same features as above. (»»
Activity III Key, p. 34)
Alice hates her job. She works in a drab office with bare walls, her co-workers
don’t like her and, on top of it, she thinks it’s a dead-end job. Bertha likes
her work. Her desk is the brightest spot in the building. The people she works
with are always doing things for each other and she considers them her friends.
Bertha says her job is a small part of an important company, and she intends to
move up in it. The funny thing is that Bertha and Alice work for the same
company. But Bertha knows a secret: a worker who takes responsibility for her
job can make it better. (110 words)
Activity IV
Take down in phonetic transcription the text that is going to be dictated to you. Include the same
features as above.
Dictation (1)
i) First, listen to the complete version of the text you will have to take down. [Open the Rec
1-6_Dictation1Text.mp3 audio file to do this activity.]
31
ii) When you have heard the text once, open the Rec 1-7_Dictation1.mp3 audio file, where
you will hear the text divided up into short chunks, each of which is said three times.
Take down the text as you listen. Try not to stop the recording until you finish. The text
is recorded at the normal pace for a dictation.
iii) When you have finished taking down the text, listen to the complete version again [open
the Rec 1-6_Dictation1Text.mp3 audio file again] for a final check.
iv) Re-read your transcription and make sure you have included all the features requested.
v) Now you are ready to check your transcription with the key. (»» Dictation (1) Key, p.
35)
KEY to the written exercises
Quick Check 2 Key
1/ Length is related to units such as breath-force

2/ Loudness is perceived as a speaker’s intensity
3/ Pitch is produced by the varying a syllable or succession of
4/ Length is a syllables
5/ Pitch is usually measured in terms of relative value
these dimensions: rate of vocal fold vibration
6/ Variations in the air pressure coming pitch
from the lungs are known as loudness
7/ Certain attitudes (such as anger, “high” or “low”
emphasis, etc.) can be expressed by
varying degrees of
8/ The feature most closely related to
intonation is
(back to Quick Check 2 Mod, p. 7)
Activity I Key
32


(back to Activity I Mod, p. 7)
Quick Check 3 Key
Syllable division is marked . in the words in phonetic transcription below.
VERBS
second syllable ending with more than one consonant.
second syllable containingəʊ
second syllable containing a short vowel and no final consonant.
last syllable containing a short vowel and ending with not more than one consonant.
NOUNS
second syllable containing a diphthong.
second syllable containing a diphthong.
33
last syllable containing a short vowel (ə, which is elided in this case), and the
syllable preceding the final syllable containing a diphthong.
last syllable ending with more than one consonant.
last syllable containing a short vowel, and the syllable preceding the final syllable
ending with more than one consonant.
last syllable containing a short vowel, and the syllable preceding the final syllable
ending with more than one consonant.
ADJECTIVES
second syllable containing a dipththong.
second syllable containing a long vowel.
second syllable containing a short vowel (ə, which is elided in this case) and one
final consonant.
last syllable containing two consonants
(exception!) second syllable ending with two consonants (should be stressed on the
first syllable, according to the rule).
Quick Check 4 Key
b/ ˈhelpless ˈhelplessness No
c/ ˈorganise organiˈsation Yes
d/ ˈinjure ˈinjury No
e/ apˈpoint apˈpointment No
f/ inˈferior infeˈriority Yes
g/ ˈmarvel ˈmarvelous No
h/ length ˈlengthy No
i/ ˈyellow ˈyellowish No
j/ Seneˈgal Senegalˈese Yes
k/ surˈprise surˈprising No
Quick Check 5 Key
A. ˈclimate cliˈmatic 2. SI
ˈPortugal Portˈguese 3. S
34
ˈpoison ˈpoisonous 1. SN
B. ˈlaunder laundeˈrette 3. S
ˈcomfort ˈcomfortable 1. SN
ˈperiod periˈodical 2. SI
C. ˈpunctual punctuˈality 2. SI
wide ˈwiden 1. SN
ˈmountain mountaiˈneer 3. S
D. ciˈgar cigaˈrette 3. S
eˈconomy ecoˈnomic 2. SI
ˈsympathy ˈsympathise 1. SN
E. ˈpunish ˈpunishment 1. SN
ˈpicture pictuˈresque 3. S
ˈproverb proˈverbial 2. SI
Quick Check 6 Key
1/ She’s so self-centred!
2/ He’s a self-made man, they say.
3/ She married a middle-aged man.
4/ He’s a good-looking chap, though.
5/ I used to work for a very bad-tempered boss.
6/ Luckily, my class was very well-behaved.
7/ The president was assassinated by a cold-blooded murderer.
The main stress falls on the first element of the compound when the adjective is followed by a
strongly stressed noun.
Quick Check 7 Key
ˈrebel Noun
deˈcrease Verb
proˈtest Verb
ˈconflict Noun
35
ˈabstract Adjective
ˈescort Noun
ˈincrease Noun
conˈtest Verb
ˈpermit Noun
preˈsent Verb
ˈperfect Adjective
inˈsult Verb
Activity II Key
(back to Activity II Mod, p. 13)
Quick Check 8 Key
- /  - /   / -
They went to the beach in the morning.
/ /  - /   /
What´s up with this stupid ma chine.
/ /  / /
Tom thought that Frank knew.
- /  - /   - - - / 
He works at the supermarket in the corner.
36
Activity III Key
ɒɜ ɒ
ǀɜ
 ǀ ɒɒ

ǀɒɜɜ
ɒɜ
ǀǀ
ɜɒ
ǀ
 ǀ
ǀɜ ǀɜ
ɜɜɒ
ɒǀ

(back to Activity III Mod, p. 18)
Quick Check 9 Key
a. ‘Holiday’ is prominent to make it clear that they didn’t go on business, or for any other reason.
b. ‘South’, as opposed to ‘north’.
c. ‘on’ is important here because it gives the listener the idea that they stayed longer than they had
originally planned (four weeks instead of two).
d. Again, it was ‘four’ weeks, not two, as they had planned.
e. ‘Mum’, as opposed to some other member of the family (not dad, or Pat, or…)
f. Here, on the other hand, ‘on’ is a “taken-for-granted” element. It collocates with “holiday” (we
always say that we “go on holiday”), so there’s no other possible alternative than ‘on’ in this
context.
g. If you go on holiday, you obviously expect to have a ‘good’ time; it’s not particularly necessary
to emphasise this idea.
h. As opposed to ‘weeks’ in the fourth tone unit, which is prominent because it makes it clear how
long they had planned to spend in France, here the important idea is that instead of two, they
stayed on for ‘four’ weeks. It is unnecessary to highlight ‘weeks’, as it would be very
improbable that they had stayed for four ‘months’, for instance.
37
Dictation (1) Key

(back to Activity IV Mod, p. 22)
Final Task Key
1. A /
eˈconomy ecoˈnomic (adj.) (SI)
ˈpoison ˈpoisonous (adj.) (SN)
ˈChina Chiˈnese (adj.) (S)
ˈsympathy sympaˈthetic (adj.) (SI)
ˈpunish ˈpunishment (noun) (SN)
1. B /
“Vice-president” is stressed on the second element in isolation, but when followed by a strongly
stressed noun (as in “Vice-President Jones), the main stress is shifted back to the position of the
secondary stress.
2. A /
- /  - /   / - - /
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
- /  - /   / - - - - / - / -
Com puters con sume a con siderable a mount of money.
3.
1. A: When did you last see Jane?

B: I saw her last month.
A: And are you seeing her again soon?
B: Yes. I’m seeing her again this week. In fact, I’m going her tomorrow..
38
2. A: Are the Joneses happy in their new neighbourhood?

B: No. They’re going to move.
3. A: Will you be at the meeting on Monday evening?

B: Yes. I’m not going away till Tuesday morning.
(back to Final Task Mod, p. 24)
39
BIBLIOGRAPHY

MANDATORY READING
 Roach, Peter. 2010. English Phonetics and Phonology: A Practical Course, 4th ed., Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
 Bradford, Barbara. 1998. Intonation in Context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 Wells, J. C. 2008, Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, London: Pearson Education.
REFERENCE MATERIAL CONSULTED FOR UNIT DESIGN
 Brazil, David.1997. The Communicative Value of Intonation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.
 Celce-Murcia M., Brinton, D. & Goodwin, J. 2010. Teaching Pronunciation (A reference for Teachers of
English to Speakers of Other Languages); Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Cruttenden, Alan.1997. Intonation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Cruttenden, Alan.2014. Gimson’s Pronunciation of English,8th ed. Oxon: Routledge.
 Hancock, Mark.2003. English Pronunciation in Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Kelly, Gerald. 2000. How to teach pronunciation. Essex: Pearson Education Limited.
 Kenworthy, Joanne. 1992. Teaching English Pronunciation. London: Longman.
 McCarthy, Michael. 2000. Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
 Ponsonby, M. 1982. How Now Brown Cow? A course in the pronunciation of English, Phoenix ELT,
Prentice Hall.
 Underhill, Adrian. 2005. Sound Foundations. London: Heinemann.
INTERNET SITES CONSULTED AND RECOMMENDED AS FURTHER READING
Developing teachers.com: a site for the developing language teacher [on line]:
http://www.developingteachers.com/articles_tchtraining/supra2_scott.htm
Nursery rhymes – Lyrics and origin [on line]: http://www.rhymes.org.uk/.
The online resource for students of English as a second or foreign language [on line]:
www.anglik.net/songsandrhymes.htm.
Western Washington University [on line]:
http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test2materials/prosody.htm
40

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UNIDAD 1 FONÉTICA Y FONOLOGÍA II

Welcome To The Next Level! ............................................................................................................. 1

WELCOME TO THE NEXT LEVEL!

TOPIC I know this topic I know this topic I need to revise

Still with some

I can produce (orally) all the phonemes of English.

I can produce phonemic differences in words (cat

ON YOUR OWN: PRE-READING TASK

As you read, find answers to these questions:

LESSON 1: SUPRASEGMENTAL FEATURES

“Only in very unusual situations do we speak with fixed, unvarying pitch,

We have established that for pitch differences to be linguistically

1. Length is related to units such as breath-force

(Quick Check 2 Mod)

(Quick Check 3 Mod)

Your noun Does stress change with suffix?

2) Now, add a suffix to the words below in order to form an adjective.

g/ marvel .......................... ………………….

(Quick Check 4 Mod)

(Quick Check 5 Mod)

a/ absent-minded: 1. He gave me an ˈabsent-minded ˈlook.

(Quick Check 6 Mod)

(Quick Check 7 Mod)

“Utterances can be divided up into groups of syllables that have more or

(Quick Check 8 Mod)

GIVE IT A QUICK THOUGHT

“Traditionally, rhythm has been considered an important element in the

[…] The idea of stress timing has been reinforced by a phonological

GIVE IT A QUICK THOUGHT

As a result of these differences in stress level and syllable length,

Hey, diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle,

This little pig went to market,

(Activity III Mod)

/i VIsited her YESterday /

/she got eXACtly the camera she WANTed /

Read on from Michael McCarthy: Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers.18

“When and why do speakers attach prominence to syllables and, thereby, to

NO, it’s part OF the course, NOT just an optional EXtra.

a holiday (in // we went to FRANCE on HOliday // )

f on (in // we went to FRANCE on HOliday // )

(Quick Check 9 Mod)

FINAL TASK (»» Final Task Key, p. 35)

A / Read the following list of words and do the following:

Example: ˈclimate cliˈmatic (SI)

economy ……………………….. ………..

B / Study these two examples:

ˈJones, the Vice-ˈPresident ˈVice-President ˈJones

Why is the word vice-president stressed differently in both cases?

a) A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

B / Practise reading the following rhymes:

2. A: Are the Joneses happy in their new neighbourhood?

3. A: Will you be at the meeting on Monday evening?

(Final Task Mod)

SEE YOU IN THE NEXT UNIT!

TOPIC I know this topic I know this topic I need to revise

WRITTEN AND ORAL PRACTICE

“What’s the time, please?”

it happens. Forgetting some feature (such as aspiration,

KEY to the written exercises

Quick Check 2 Key

1/ Length is related to units such as breath-force

(back to Quick Check 2 Mod, p. 7)

(back to Activity I Mod, p. 7)