UNIT 9

THE ENGLISH PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM III:

STRESS, RHYTHM AND INTONATION.
COMPARISON WITH THE SPANISH PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM.
0. INTRODUCTION
1. THE ENGLISH PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM
2. STRESS
3. RHYTHM
4. INTONATION
5. CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS
6. CONCLUSION
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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0. INTRODUCTION
The sounds of English are normally studied one by one. But speech sounds seldom occur in isolation;
they are nearly always strung together to form words and sequences of words. In any combination of
sounds there is a tendency for each sound to be influenced by its neighbours. Sometimes this influence
will be so slight as to be hardly noticeable; at other times it will be very strongly marked. As a matter
of fact, students of English realize when hearing native speakers that their final utterances bear little
relation to the pronunciation of the same words in isolation. In FLT there has been a shift in the
teaching of phonetics; previously, the emphasis was laid on individual sounds, whereas nowadays the
focus is on connected speech. Special attention is being paid to stress, rhythm and intonation since
they also convey meaning and this could be an important source for misunderstandings.
Therefore, stress, rhythm and intonation comprise the bulk of this paper, together with a contrastive
analysis of both, the English and Spanish phonological systems.

1. THE ENGLISH PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM: SEGMENTAL VS SUPRASEGMENTAL

FEATURES
Two categories should be clarified from the very outset, for they delimit the field of study of this unit,
i.e., segmental and suprasegmental features:
• Segmental features: they deal with vowels and consonants.
• Suprasegmental features: they correspond to stress, rhythm and intonation. They are also known
as prosodic features.
The suprasegmental features are those which operate over longer stretches of speech, such as, stress,
rhythm, intonation, pitch, and voice quality as opposed to the segmental features which are referred
to as the individual sounds.
In general terms, when one hears English spoken or read aloud, one realizes that a number of words
or syllables stand out from the rest of the sentence. This standing out may be termed prominence.
Investigations go to show that the effect of prominence is produced by the very intimate combination
of length, stress, pitch, and inherent sonority of sounds, i.e. a sound or syllable has prominence when
it stands out from its neighbours because:
- it is more sonorous
- it is longer
- it is louder, because of greater breath force (strength)
- or it has a different pitch.
All in all, stress, rhythm and intonation bear a close relationship with prominence.
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2. STRESS
In any English utterance consisting of several syllables some of the syllables are strongly stressed,
and some are weakly stressed. When a syllable is strongly stressed, it means that it is uttered with
great energy, with more breath force. The total effect is that the stressed syllable seems louder than
the others. There are four basic elements which need to be considered with stress which are loudness
and the lenght of the sound, the height of the pitch and the carrying power of the sound. English is
full of loud syllables like that; they make any English utterance sound jerky compared with the even
flow of many other languages, such as Spanish. In this sense, stress is when we give more emphasis
to some parts of an utterance, whether they be syllables or words. The notation of stress is the high
mark demonstrated in the examples:

Take as an example the sentence He didn't know the reason why. As a plain statement it will be
pronounced as follows: [hi 'didn't 'nau 6a 'ri:zn 'wai]. It has four stressed and four unstressed syllables,
and they are evenly distributed so that unstressed and stressed syllables alternate. It is the stresses that
give an English sentence its characteristic rhythmic pattern; this particular sentence has an iambic
rhythm characteristic of the English language: up-down-beat-down. As far as the rhythm goes, it
might be a line of verse. We have exactly the same pattern in I 'thought I 'knew him 'well e'nough and
in it 'must have 'cost at 'least a 'pound. When these sentences are uttered by English speakers, the
student can listen to the regular movement of the rhythm, the alternation of weak and strong beats.
Stressed syllables are prominent and prominence is, as mentioned above, the sum of different factors
such as loudness, length, pitch and quality. There are three possibilities of stress in a word:
- a primary stress characterised by prominence. As mentioned above, stressed syllables notation,
when transcribed, is a high mark ('), which stands for the most prominent syllable.
- A secondary stress weaker than the primary stress but stronger than that of the unstressed syllable.
In transcriptions this is normally notated by a low mark (,)
- Unstressed syllables, defined by the absence of any prominence. Unstressed syllables normally
have the closed short vowels or schwa /ə/.
Note the word photographic, in which the three different kinds of stress is realized: photo'graphic.
Those syllables which have not been marked stand for unstressed syllables:
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The quantity of the vowels varies depending on the position they take within the word; those vowels
with a primary stress tend to be longer:
Ex.:
1. Give it to her
2. Did you give it to her?
In sentence number 1, her takes primary stress and is longer than her in sentence number 2. This
example show that vowel sounds in the prominent syllables are generally longer than those in non-
prominent syllables. In short, vowels in stressed position are more voiced in the same way as short
vowels are pronounced with more weight, as if they were longer.
2.1. WORD STRESS
Incorrect stress placement is the major cause of intelligibility problems for foreign learners, and is
therefore a subject that needs to be treated seriously. Thus, where does stress lie in English?
One syllable words: when pronounced in isolation, they receive the primary stress, for there is no
other syllable competing with it: haus 0ir)
Two syllable words: the tendency is to place the stress on the first syllable; nevertheless, it is subject
to change:
- Two-syllable words of Old English origin place the stress on the first syllable, i.e. it takes the /1 0/
pattern or trochaic pattern: 'brother, 'wonder, 'wander, 'island. Native words and early French
adoptions tend to have the main stress on the root syllable and keep it there, regardless of the affixes
that word formation may add:
'stand under'stand misunder'stand
This contrasts with more recent additions to the language where the place of stress varies according
to the affixation: 'transport trans'portable transportation
- Two-syllable words with inflectional or derivational suffix also take the pattern /1 0/: 'thinking,
'older, 'eldest, 'kingdom, 'tasteful, 'kindly.
- Non-native (French or Romance) two-syllable words take the stress on the second syllable, /0 1/.
This is the so-called iambic pattern: e'xam.
- Verbs formed by a prefix + stem also take the iambic pattern /0 1/: be'gin, re'ject.
- Some borrowings tend to adopt the native English trochaic pattern /1 0/: 'certain, 'village, 'coffee,
'ballet, 'marriage, 'message.
- Two-syllable verbs derived from nouns or adjectives formed by a prefix + stem take the /0 1/ pattern.
The stress determines category of the word:
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Compound words: these normally take the trochaic pattern /1 0/; yet, this is not always so. For this
reason we shall distinguish between true-compounds and pseudo-compounds. The former are those
in which the first part subcategorizes the second part as opposed to normal noun phrase stress patter:
'lighthouse vs. light'house. Besides, both parts form a whole, just one meaning: 'green-house,
'sleeping-bag, 'black-bird. On the contrary, pseudo-compounds do not form a single meaning; the
first part is an adjunct or localizer to the second part. For this particular case, the pattern shifts /0 1/:
sea'shore, sea 'wall.
Note the difference between 'English teacher and English 'teacher:
'English teacher: true-compound. This is a teacher who teaches English.
English 'teacher: pseudo-compound. This is a teacher from England. Besides, if a compound is used
as an element of another compound, the same overall pattern is retained: 'lighthouse-,keeper.
Affixes also have a great impact on the placement of stresses:
Prefixes do not generally have an effect on the word they are attached to, although they may take a
secondary stress if the primary one isn’t adjacent. For example, in ‘illegal’, which comes from ‘legal’,
there is no secondary stress, while in ‘unemployed’, which comes from ‘employed’, has a secondary
stress. Those which have a secondary stress on them are ‘re’, ‘pre’, ‘post’, ‘pro’, ‘anti’, ‘ex’…; those
which a clear meaning.
On the other hand, there are suffixes which do no affect the stress on the root: ‘(e)s’, ‘(e)d’, ‘ing’,
‘er’, ‘(c)y’, ‘ist’, ‘ism’, ‘able’, ‘ize’, ‘al’, ‘ful’, ‘less’, ‘ly’, ‘ness’, ‘ment’ and ‘ous’. There are other
suffixes which move the primary stress on themselves: ‘ee’, ‘eer’, ‘esce’, ‘ette’, ‘esque’, ‘oon’, ‘ain’.
And finally, there are some which move the primary stress towards them: ‘ic’ as in ‘economic’, ‘al’
as in ‘political’, ‘ation’ as in ‘illustration’, ‘ty’ as in ‘rapidity’, ‘ial’ as in ‘potential’, ‘ar’ as in
‘familiar’, ‘ous’ as in ‘advantageous’, ‘y’ as in ‘photography’.
-ion: nouns ending in -ion take the stress on the syllable before this affix: Civili'zation
-ity: nouns ending in -ity take the stress on the previous syllable: natio'nality.
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-ian: the same goes for -ian: poli'tician.
-ic: adjectives ending in -ic bear the stress on the previous syllable: biblio'graphic.
-iar: the same goes for -iar: fa'miliar
-ial: the same goes for -ial: po'tential
-ette: the affix takes the stress: ciga'rette
-ese: the affix takes the stress: Japa'nese
2.2. SENTENCE STRESS
Having analysed word stress we should now turn our attention to sentence stress. When words are
put together to form phrases and sentences, the concept of rhythm becomes impoetant, and words
normally stressed may become unstresed, or less stressed or stress may be moed onto another syllable.
English is a language of widely different degrees of stress; strongly marked stresses occur at more or
less regular intervals of time separated by syllables bearing little stress. It is in these unstressed
syllables that we must look for change. In the sentence 'what are you 'going to 'do 'today? There are
four stressed and five unstressed syllables; the unstressed words pronounced separately would be
different. are becomes [a], you becomes [ju] and to becomes [to]. Vowels are reduced to a kind of
neutral vowel under the influence of the stress and rhythm of the connected sentences.
It is important to distinguish between word-stress and sentence-stress. Each word in English, which
consists of more than one syllable, has a fixed stress pattern. Normally one of the syllables will have
stronger stress than the rest. But sentence-stress is not as fixed as that. When several words are put
together in a sentence, they are seldom of equal importance, and so more are given more stress than
others. Normally each word preserves its word-stress, its individual stress pattern, but it may happen
that the stressed syllable of a particular word is relatively weak in relation to the stressed syllables of
other words in the sentence. Then, stress distribution provides a firm basis for distinguishing between
different underlying relations, as in the example mentioned above (the English teacher).
Above all, the same string of words can be accented in different ways.
[marianna made the marmalade] [marianna made the marmalade]
In an ordinary statement, the most important words of the sentence, called content words, are
stressed: nouns, main verbs, adjectives, demonstrative & interrogative pronouns, adverbs. On the
contrary, form words do not normally bear the stress. These are: auxiliary verbs, prepositions,
pronouns, conjunctions, articles.
Yet, this is not always so, since form words can also take a stressed form when the speaker wants to
highlight or stress something. Where it is desired to emphasize one idea above others in a sentence,
the word expressing that idea receives an extra amount of stress, and the surrounding words lose a
good deal of their stress. Thus, what are the conditions which may cause a normally unstressed word
to become stressed, and vice versa? They are the special meanings and contrast that may be implied
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in any particular sentence. For instance, in give him the book, him is not normally stressed. But if
there is a contrast between various people who might receive the book, and if the whole point of the
utterance is to emphasize that I want this particular person and nobody else to have it, the stress should
be placed on him and no other word (contrastive stress). Contrast between two ideas expressed or
unexpressed may be shown by varying the normal stress: 'rice 'puding but I want 'rice pudding (not
plum pudding).
As mentioned previously, strongly marked stresses occur at more or less regular intervals of time
separated by syllables bearing little stress. But, what happens when a sentence is formed by content
words? do they all carry the primary stress? Since rhythm intervenes in every utterance, two strong
syllables cannot occur in English together. Thus, stress retraction is found (also called leftward hoo
or de-stressing)
This stress retraction is to avoid the presence of two strong stresses together: Eg.: sea-shore shell —
sea-shore shell
011231
The strong tendency to strong-weak patterning in English can explain a number of stress shifts. Thus,
stress may also move to preserve the rhythm:
Eg.: The Japanese flew here — The Japanese flew here

3. RHYTHM
Rhythm is the pattern formed by the stresses (primary or secondary) perceived as peaks of prominence
occurring at more or less regular intervals of time. In other words, it is the regular succession of strong
and weak stresses in utterances which occur at regular intervals of time.
Rhythm, or the grouping of elements into larger units, is a property of all languages. The particular
rhythm of a language is the result of the interaction of a set of components, such as the relative length,
pitch, and segmental quality of accented and unaccented syllables, and phonological components,
such as syllable structure and the function of accent. A system of rating whereby these components
are broken down into features which can be assigned a plus or minus value allows us to compare the
rhythm of languages or language varieties.
3.1. THE RHYTHMIC GROUP
English sentences are spoken with recurrent bursts of speed, with long or short pauses or with
intonation breaks between. A sentence or part of a sentence spoken with a single rush of syllables
uninterrupted by a pause is a RHYTHM UNIT.
The timing of rhythm units produces a rhythmic succession which is an important characteristic of
the English phonological structure. The units tend to follow one another in such a way that the lapse
of time between the beginning of their prominent syllables is somewhat uniform. The tendency
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toward uniform spacing of stresses in material which has uneven numbers of syllables within its
rhythm groups can be achieved only by destroying any possibility of even time spacing of syllables.
Since the rhythm units have different numbers of syllables, but a similar time value, the syllables of
the longer ones are crushed together, and pronounced very rapidly, in order to get them pronounced
at all, within that time limitation. This rhythmic crushing of syllables into short time limits is partly
responsible for many abbreviations - in which syllables may be omitted entirely - and the obscuring
of vowels; it implies, also, that English syllables are of different lengths, with their length of utterance
controlled not only by the lexical phonetic characteristics of their sounds but also by the accident of
the number of syllables in the particular rhythmic unit to which they happen to belong at that moment.
Rhythmic groups can be:
- A combination of weak and strong syllables: a PEN
- Two weak syllables prevailing the rhythmic group: THINK about it
- Three or more weak syllables within the rhythmic group: the 'interest of the 'subject was crucial.
The most important stressed syllable in an utterance is known as the accented syllable or nucleus.
The stressed syllables within the breath groups occur at almost regular intervals of time, and however
many or few unstressed syllables there may be between the stresses, they seem to fit in to the time
allowed. But, in order to achieve these regular intervals of time, or, in other words, if a number of
syllables have to fit within the rhythmic group, some syllables change both their quality and quantity,
depending on whether they belong to content or form words.
3.3. QUANTITY AND QUALITY IN A RHYTHMIC GROUP
Vowels and continuant consonants in accented syllables in a rhythmic group are shortened to
unaccented syllables. The quantity and the quality of unaccented words tend to change. As mentioned
above, content words generally retain most of the quality and quantity of the word uttered in isolation.
Yet, many form words have two or more quantitative patterns.
It is important to note that the quantity and quality of vowels and consonants of accented syllables
slightly change within the rhythmic group. In this sense, they are generally shortened and / or reduced
to unaccented. Besides, we should not forget that while content words tend to retain the quantity and
quality of that same word uttered in isolation, form words have two or more qualitative and
quantitative patterns according to whether they are unaccented or accented (weak and strong forms).
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4. INTONATION
The messages that we convey to one another depends just as much on how we say something as on
what it is that we actually say. In the study of intonation, pitch, loudness and length are the most
important factors, since they work together to give certain syllables prominence over the others.
Intonation is the term given to the rise and fall in the pitch of the voice in speech, or in other words,
the association of relative prominence with pitch, the aspect of sound which we perceive in terms of
high and low. Change in pitch is due to differing rates of vibration of the vocal cords. Intonation
varies somewhat from individual to individual, and considerably from district to district, each part of
the country having its distinctive speech melody.
Intonation, then, can be narrowly described as the movements or variations in pitch to which we
attach familiar labels describing levels (e.g. high/low) and tones (e.g. falling/rising), etc. Another
important component is the phenomenon called prominence, which is the tendency for speakers to
makes some syllables more noticeable than others. This is accomplished by pronouncing them louder
and longer, by assigning them a different pitch, or by articulating the phonemes (especially the vowel)
more distinctly. Prominence is also sometimes referred to as emphasis, focus, main stress, nucleus or
tonic accent. Importantly, pitch level, pitch movement and prominence are all relative values.
There are five clearly discernable intonation patterns that are used on a regular basis in English:
FALLING, RISING, FLAT, FALL-RISE, RISE-FALL.
Both stress and intonation clearly influence the manner and meaning of what we say and yet they do
not alter the individual phonemes or sounds. The way we transcribe the phonemes is unchanged by
stress or intonation. However, stress and intonation clearly have a role in the way in which we speak
and it has to be taken into consideration.
4.1. INTONATION PATTERN1

The pattern of intonation is realized in tone units (also called intonation phrase). A tone unit is a
stretch of speech which contains one nucleus and which may contain other stressed syllables,

1
There are two types of tone sequence models: the British (model used here) and the American school. The
former is based on pitch movements, whereas the latter does it on pitch levels. See also appendix.
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normally preceding the nucleus. The boundaries of each tone unit is marked by the following sign: |
| : eg.: | When you are ready | come and call me |
The nucleus is the peak of greatest prominence, which marks a major change of pitch direction. Thus,
it is always a stressed syllable, or rather, it is an accented syllable which is stressed and pitch
prominent (accented vs. stressed syllable). 2The type of pitch change which takes place on the
nucleus is called tone. The nucleus can be:
• Rise ('): if it is a high-rise, the glide goes from low to mid, or from mid to high if it is a low-rise. It
gives the impression that something else is to follow, or that we require some information from the
listener. In normal speech it is used in questions when a yes/no is required (Are you 'Spanish?), wh-
questions to show interest or politeness (Where's your 'mummy? Would you like anything 'else?).
• Fall ( ) : this type of nucleus can either be a high fall or a low fall. The falling glide starts from the
highest or mid pitch of the speaking voice and fall to the lowest pitch. It expresses the end of the
speaker's intervention and the listener's turn to speak. In normal speech, it is used in statements (He's
'Spanish), wh- questions (What's the 'time?), commands (Come 'here!), exclamations (What an
Idiot!), short answers ( Yes/ No) or strong assertions (You go don't come with me 'anywhere).
• Fall-rise Q: this glide, taking place within one syllable, starts at mid level and ends at roughly the
same level. Extremely common in English, it is used to indicate uncertainty, hesitation or doubt. It is
applied in apologies (I'm so"rry) or in ironic sentences (You don't like ' chocolate - I "don't).
• Rise-fall ("): fall reinforced by an introductory rise. It is used to show complacency, criticism, strong
feelings of approval or disapproval, surprise or challenge (Have you ever killed someone? - "No! Of
course not!).
• Level: it gives the impression of routine, boredom or lack of interest. A typical example takes place
in class: 'Allan? - ~Yes, 'Tom? - 'Here...
• Rise-Fall-Rise
An important feature of English intonation is the use of an intonational accent (and extra stress) to
mark the focus of a sentence. Normally this focus accent goes on the last major word of the sentence,
but it can come earlier in order to emphasize one of the earlier words or to contrast it with something
else. The various degrees of accentuation in an utterance may be signalled by means of intonation in
the following way:
- Primary (nuclear) accent: by means of a change of pitch direction initiated by the syllable
receiving the accent.

2
Accented vs. stressed syllable: a stressed syllable has a full vowel and is perceived as involving a rhythmic beat.
An accented syllable is a syllable which is stressed and pitch prominent, which can be primary (nuclear) accent,
secondary (pitch prominent) accent, secondary accent without pitch prominence and unaccented syllables.
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- Secondary (pitch prominent) accent: by means of a change of pitch level (higher or lower) on the
accented syllable.
- Secondary accent without pitch prominence: secondary accent on some words may be manifested
by qualitative, quantitative or rhythmic prominence, without pitch prominence.
- Unaccented syllables: do not normally have pitch or other prominence and are unmarked.
And tones can also be: falling, rising, falling-rising.
So far, two basic elements of tone units have been examined, namely the nucleus and the tones; yet,
these should be studied in greater detail.
For a tone unit to exist, there must be a nucleus, which carries primary accent. In this sense, the
internal structure of the tone unit is determined by the location of accents. However, other accented
and non-accented syllables can also appear within the tone unit. According to the British school there
are two types of accent units:
(1) Prenuclear accent units; also called the head. The head comprises all prenuclear accent units.
(2) Nuclear accent units; also called the nucleus. The nuclear accent unit is the last accent unit in
the intonation phrase.
• Head: it is the first pre-nuclear accented syllable.
• Body: these are the syllables between the head and the nucleus.
• Tail: these are the syllables preceding the nucleus.
• Unaccented syllables: any unaccented syllable.
But JOHN's never BEEN to Jamaica
Pre-head Pre-nuclear accent unit Nuclear accent unit j
HEAD NUCLEUS Stressed syllable
2 CHOICES 3 CHOICES 6 CHOICES
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In this sense, the pre-nuclear elements could comprise a head, the body and unaccented syllables.
The post-nuclear elements could consist of a tail and unaccented syllables. Stands for unaccented
syllables.

4.2. FUNCTIONS OF INTONATION

It is a common truth that the way we say something can be just as important in conveying a message
as the words we use to say it. Intonation choices made by speakers carry linguistic information and
the various elements of intonation are seen to perform a variety of functions.
a. Accentual function
It highlights the most important words in an utterance, together with stress: John likes fish (although
his wife does not), John 'likes fish (so why did not he eat?) (see previous section)
b. Grammatical function
When pitch variations constitute the only difference between a question and an assertion, intonation
has a grammatical function. This grammatical function is rather pragmatic in nature as what it
describes is how intonation can carry illocutionary force.
Intonation, thus, identifies sentence types, such as declarative sentences, exclamations, questions... It
is here where the type of nucleus becomes relevant, in opposition to the placement of the nucleus
itself. Consider the difference between: You 're going. (statement) You're going? (question) The rise
and fall of pitch throughout is called its intonation contour. The normal intonation contours for
questions in English use:
• final rising pitch for a Yes/No question
o Are you coming today? 7\
• final falling pitch for a Wh-question
o When are you coming? Where are you going? ^1
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Using a different pattern typically adds something extra to the question. E.g., falling intonation on a
Yes/No question can be interpreted as abruptness. Rising intonation on a Wh-question can imply
surprise or that you did not hear the answer the first time and are asking to have it repeated.
Basically, there are two explicit ways to express interrogation: one is by the use of an explicit
interrogative sentence form and the other by intonation alone. But sometimes the interrogative use
has to be inferred from the lexical choices or the general context. The conventional view is that
yes/no-questions have a rising and wh-questions a falling contour.
c. Discourse function
This fuction tells us about what new information is and what is not, and again it is tied to stress. It is
stated that a fall indicates new information, while a rise refers back. Intonation helps speakers show
how each of their utterances is related to other utterances and to the discourse as a whole. Moreover,
all intonation choices are tied to the context in which they occur. In contrast to the linguistic universals
of grammar-based descriptions, it would be impossible in the discourse approach to isolate a stretch
of speech from its context and make any generalizations about intonational meaning.
d. Attitudinal function
Intonation has often been represented by an attitudinal approach, that is to say, it points out the
emotional attitude on the part of the speaker. This attitudinal or expressive function of intonation
gives us an indication of the speakers' mood, feelings or attitude towards her subject or audience.
People have a tendency to think of intonation as being directly linked to the speaker's emotions.
Across languages, an intonational rise signifies continuation or incompleteness, and a fall means
completion. These two functions, the signalling of continuation and completion, belong to discourse
management and turn-taking, and as such we can perhaps understand their universal status across
languages, because continuation and completion is something speakers of all languages have to do.
Asking a question is an example of an incomplete discourse and answering it illustrates potential
completion. Yes/no-questions are incomplete in themselves, without the answer, and they use the
rising tune. Declaratives are typically used to make assertions, which bring in new information into
the discourse, and they tend to have the completion-marking, falling pattern. These two intonational
shapes would then be the prototypical patterns for questions and declaratives. Rises are also used in
non-terminal items on lists and the final item typically has a fall, signalling incompleteness and
completion, respectively.
Wh-questions tend to come with a falling tune, but this goes together with the explicit wh-word and
word order change, which are further explicit signals of interrogation. Unlike yes/no-questions, wh-
questions contain a large amount of propositional presuppositions, which places them in the middle-
ground between declaratives and interrogatives. For example, the interrogative sentence What time
did John come? asks a question about the time of an event whose existence is presupposed, i.e., John
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did come. This may explain why the typical wh-pattern is falling: while they are asking for a specific
piece of information, they also give a large amount of information. Yes/no-questions are different
from wh-questions also in that any constituent can be made into a y/n-question exclusively by the
universal rising contour. Thus, the use of the rising and falling tunes to signal continuation and
completion, respectively, is not unique to English, but English manifests a strong universal tendency,
which is shared by numerous languages.

5. CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS
A contrastive analysis between the L1 and the L2 helps scholars and students be aware of those areas
where both languages differ. And this helps them, too, understand and produce the language
accurately.
Each language has its own segmental and suprasegmental features; some might coincide, but some
others differ to a large extent. As a matter of fact and regarding the suprasegmental features, it is
worth mentioning that they convey meaning. Thus, this should be learnt in order to avoid
misunderstandings.
As for stress, most English words take a trochaic pattern /1 0/, unlike Spanish which takes an iambic
one /0 1/: 'brother vs. a'mor.
Also, English is a stress-timed language, and Spanish is a syllable-timed language. That is why
Spanish speakers sound "boring", or remind English speakers of the staccato beat. Nursery rhymes,
for instance, are a good example of how English sounds for this language mirrors the pattern of these
folk chants. English stress feet are left-headed.
Of course, it strikes Spanish students that what they hear has little relation to what is written. This
has to do with how connected speech affects the sounds: the alternation of weak and strong syllables,
assimilation, reduction etc.
Regarding intonation, English contours are specific of this language; yet, some of them coincide not
only with Spanish, but also with many other languages, such as a rise means continuation or
incompleteness, and a fall conveys completion although Spanish uses the rising tune much more often
than English does in questions, which can lead to problems in understanding English speakers who
transfer their native patterns to Spanish, and problems in production, for example, the falling question
tag. In addition, the fall-rise pattern is rarely used in Spanish.

6. CONCLUSION
Over the course of this unit special attention has been paid to stress, rhythm and intonation
respectively as remarkable features of the English language. The study of the suprasegmental features
of the English language is an important aspect when learning the language itself. The main focus of
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current approaches is communication itself; and stress, rhythm and intonation carry an important form
of meaning, which students should be aware of in order to avoid misunderstandings. Practising these
elements by means of repetition, for instance, is a good exercise in order to grasp this peculiarity of
the English language. It is not only a matter of accuracy, but also one of comprehension and being
able to make oneself understood. Pictures, tongue-twisters and nursery-rhymes, among others, are
both good resource materials and good practice. Also, giving the students a single word and making
them say it using intonation which conveys the attitudinal function. A rubber band can be used again
to model the prominent syllable(s) in a word or utterance. It can be stretched out during the stressed
syllable and left short during other syllables. The point of the exercise is to help certain students avoid
transferring their syllable timed language to their production of English.
Clapping, tapping or playing simple rhythm instruments can be an enjoyable way to demonstrate and
practise the prominence of content words in discourse or in rhymes. Using natural discourse focuses
attention on the often slightly irregular stress patterns that occur in real discourse. Rhymes can be
used as an initial demonstration of prominence bu

7.BIBLIOGRAPHY
• FINCH, D.F. & ORTIZ LIRA, H.: A Course in English Phonetics for Spanish Speakers. Heinemann.
London, 1982.
• GIMSON, A.C.: An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English. Arnold. London, 1962.