Chapter 6

The strong syllable is stressed (accented), and the other weaker syllables are unstressed (unaccented).

Stress syllables sound louder- usually longer.

Unstressed syllables sound softer –usually shorter.

The change in vowel quality from a stressed full vowel to a short central vowel is called reduction.

Vowels in unstressed syllables immediately before or immediately after stressed syllables are usually reduced.

Check pages 62-63 Exercises 64

To figure out the number of syllables in a word, you need to count the number of separate vowel sounds.

In most words, vowels alternate with consonants.

For pronunciation, a general way of dividing words into syllables is to divide between a vowel and following consonant or between two consonants in the middle of a word.

Pages 65-66

Lesson 19 /Chapter 6

Prefixes are syllables added to the beginning of a word, such as <un-,de-, dis-> unhappy, decrease, disobey.

Suffixes are syllables added to the end of a word, such as <-ly,-ment,-ness> happily, development, kindness.

The root is the center of a word, without prefixes and suffixes and carries its basic meaning. E.g. care.

Compounds are words that have more than one root, each of which can exist as a word by itself. E.g. newspaper, policeman.

Pages 67-69

Exercise page 70

Lesson 20

It sounds unnatural to stress all the words in a sentence equally or improperly.

Effective use of strong and weak emphasis in phrases and sentences will help you achieve your goal of sounding like a native speaker.

In English specific words within a sentence are emphasized or spoken louder to make them stand out.

E.g. It’s not his house; it’s her house.

Consequently, you may be confused about when to use strong stress (and when not to use it!) in English sentences.

Using the stress patterns of your native language when speaking English will contribute to your foreign accent.

Lesson 20

Page 91

Possible pronunciation problems

Important words in a sentence that convey meaning.

These include all the major parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and question words.

Unimportant words in a sentence.

These don’t carry as much meaning as content words.

We normally do NOT stress function words.

Articles, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, helping verbs.

It’s important to use words that describe what you are talking about.

Words that describe nouns (people, places or things) are called adjectives.

When you use adjective/noun combination, the noun normally receives greater stress.

**Check the examples (book!)

Questions?

Dauer, Rebecca M.

Accurate English. A Complete Course in Pronunciation.