The Music of American English Pronunciation

The Music of English

• Word stress
• Rhythm
• Reduced words
• Connected speech
• Sentence focus
• Intonation

Disappearing Syllables

• Unstressed words become weaker, softer, shorter, lower, less clear
• Some syllables are disappearing!

Predicting Stress

• Two-syllable nouns - stress the first
• Two-syllable verbs - stress the second
• Compound nouns - stress the first part
• Stress before the suffix

Thought Groups and Rhythm

• Divide a sentence into thought groups, there may be more than one way to do it
• Content Words = words that carry a lot of meaning, are usually stressed
• Small grammar words are less stressed

Reduced Words

reduced-words-handout.pdf

• Prepositions

  • of → o

  • at → /æt/ → /ət/

  • for → /fɔr/ → /fər/

  • from /frɑm/ → /frəm/

  • to → /tuw/ → /tə/

• Articles

  • a → /ey/ → /ə/
  • an → /æn/ → /ən/

• Pronouns can lose the first the consonant

  • you /yuw/ /yə/
  • he /hiy/ /iy/
  • him /hɪm/ /ɪm/
  • her /hər/ /ər/
  • them /ðɛm/ /əm/
  • our /awr/ /ɑr/
  • your /yʊr/ /yər/

• Conjunctions

  • and → an
  • or /ɔr/ /ər/

Contractions

• Can is unstressed and sounds like /kən/, instead of at the end.

Linking

• same consonant + consonant = one consonant
• /{ieao}y/ + vowel = /{ieao}/ + y + vowel
• /{uoa}w/ + vowel = /{uoa}/ + w + vowel
• consonant + vowel
• Assimilation = first consonant becomes similar to the second one
  • did you, don’t you, is you, miss you
  • in Montana

Linked Expressions

• going to [verb] = gonna
• want to = wanna
• wants to = wantsta
• have to = hafta
• has to = hasta
• could have, should have, would have = coulda, shoulda, woulda
• kind of, sort of, a lot of, lots of = kinda, sorta, alota, lotsa

Sentence Focus

• Last content word (except for time expression)
• New information
• Word we want to emphasize
• Contrasting words

Intonation

• Intonation is connected to sound sentence focus
• Statements and normal requests: goes down at the end
• Some requests goes up
• End of the sentence: goes down, otherwise the speaker has something else to say
• Questions
  • Yes/No questions go down
  • WH questions go down
  • Or questions go up and down
  • Tag questions
    • Go up = really don’t
    • Go down = knew the answer