1 Introduction to English rhythm

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1 . 1 . R h y t h m , pitch, meaning. Take a single written sentence, for instance Penelope gave your kipper to her cat again this morning. (A kipper is a smoked herring, that some British people like to eat for breakfast, preferably cooked in milk. Cats like them too!). A native speaker has hundreds of ways of reading this sentence or indeed saying it spontaneously, all with different rhythms or intonations and of course different meanings. Linguists disagree whether these are all different sentences or just the same sentence said in differ-ent ways. However that may be, a foreign student of English must learn what are the rhythmic and intonational choices available, how to pronounce them, and what is the meaning or semantic effect of each choice as against others. Intonation is a matter of vocal pitch. Rhythm is not quite so simple. It has to do with the alternation of stronger and weaker syllables or beats (whatever that may mean) but, at least in English, it is especially a matter of timing. Meaning, or semantics, is a matter of mental distinctions, i.e. of different connections one makes in the brain. Obviously, the reader must learn to control vocal pitch and timing if heshe cannot do so already, rather like a music student taking piano or singing lessons. So we will teach the necessary basics of that, in the usual phonetic manner. Unfortunately, there is no such practical teaching tradition in semantics. Nevertheless, we shall try to teach some semantic awareness and control, leaving it to the reader to judge in how far we succeed in this. English has been said to have a train-rhythm, with alternations of slow, heavy bumps and rapid, light sounds in between. Nearly all languages have far more staccato rhythms than English, many of them even a machine-gun rhythm, with all syllables equally short and rapid. Most speakers of English with typically foreign rhythms are difficult or even impossible to understand. Without underrating the importance of pitch or other pronunciation features we therefore think that getting ones rhythms in order should be the first priority of any student of English as a second language. 1.2. Rhythm before pitch. Think of any familiar song, for instance Happy Birthday To You, and gently tap it out with your finger on the table. Then you will get rhythm, but no pitch. Note that you will have done one tap per syllable. Now tap out the same text as you would normally speak it. This

time you will get a faster and more irregular rhythm, still without pitch, still with the syllable as your basic rhythmic unit. If you now hum or sing or speak the same words, your voice will go up and down in pitch. You will have pitch and rhythm. One cannot have pitch without rhythm This simple experiment teaches us quite a lot. It tells us that the syllable is the basic rhythmic unit in language, i.e. a fundamental linguistic unit. It tells us that one must have rhythm to do pitch, but that one need not have pitch to do rhythm. It warns us not to mix up rhythm and pitch when we talk about these things (as people often do), but to keep them carefully apart. 1 . 3 . S a m e words, different rhythms. As one can tap out happy birthday to you, so one can tap out the sixteen syllables of Penelope gave your kipper to her cat again this morning. But it depends on how you say it. One has a choice between quite a few different rhythms to say this written sentence. Four of these possibilities are shown below, using and to indicate divisions into rhythmic groupings, and the so-called stress-mark to identify the heavier (downbeat) as against the lighter (upbeat) syllables. The time value of each syllable and the total durations are shown as well. See if your tapping corresponds more or less with the syllable durations indicated.
12 12 3 2 2 2 1 2 4 1 4 2 4 5 total 3 sec 2 moras

pe'nelope gave your 'kipper to her 'cat a'gain this 'morning

12 13 5 2 2 2 1 5 4 1 4 4 4 5 total 3 sec 6 moras

pe'nelope 'gave your 'kipper to 'her 'cat a'gain 'this 'morning

12 12 4 2 22 12 5 1 5 2 4 5 total 3 sec 5 moras

12 13

2 3

1 5

16

total 4 sec 6 moras

The last two examples are given in full phonetic spelling, because ordinary spelling is a bit vague. It should look familiar to anyone who has ever looked up the pronunciation of a word in a dictionary and it will be explained. All the examples in phonetic spelling are also on the accompanying audio-cassette. 1.4. Stronger and weaker beats. Also try clapping out these examples with your hands. When you (gently) tapped out the syllables, all the taps were about equally loud, or soft rather. In speaking, too, all the syllables are, or should be said, about equally gently (but not unclearly!). Clarity is better

achieved by pitch movements and other vocal movements than by force. In any case, English speakers keep their voices down more than speakers of most languages. One notices this especially in public places like restaurants, ships and trains, which can be very quiet by non-English standards. If loudness is generally avoided, then, there will also be little or no difference between loud and soft syllables. Still, when clapping out these sentences (or the present passage), one cannot help noticing, indeed one can hardly avoid, a distinction between slightly more energetic or downbeat and less energetic or upbeat syllables. So rhythm is a matter not only of timing, but also, perhaps crucially, of beat. But remember that in English it is especially a matter of timing. The shortest possible syllable in English takes only 1 mora, but the longest are 8 moras long, i.e. well over half a second, and eight times as long as the shortest syllables. In very staccato languages rhythm may perhaps be mainly a matter of beat or loudness, but not in English. 1 . 5 . A c a l c u l u s f o r r h y t h m i c t i m i n g . Whichever way you say the Penelope sentences, the sixteen taps are never all the same, or at any rate should not be. English syllables vary considerably in length or duration; appropriate syllable timing is crucial for English rhythm. Fortunately, there is some system in this madness. Syllable durations can be worked out (and controlled in practice!) by means of only four very simple Syllable Timing rules, as follows: ST1 Allocate 2, 3, 4 moras respectively to syllables containing short, medium, long V. ST2 Add 1 mora for C (sequence) following V in the same syllable. ST3 Lengthen syllables before by 1, 2, 3 moras respectively. ST4 Shorten u-syllables by 1 mora. A mora is one-twelfth of a (psychological) second. The letter V stands for vowel (element), C for consonant (element), u for unstressed or upbeat syllables. Having said this, all I have to do now is to teach the reader timing-control in terms of seconds and moras, explain what the phonetic symbols stand for and where the boundary lies between syllables, say which English vowels are short, medium and long, and finally say where one puts the stress-marks and the three rhythmic boundary-marks, and why. Only this last bit is compli-

cated, mainly because it presupposes a knowledge of the stress-pattern of every individual word one uses. The rest is quite easy. 1.6. Notation of timing. Readers with a musical background will realise that our numerical notation for syllable durations could equally well be represented in musical notation, writing an eighth note (quaver) for 1 mora, a quarter-note (crotchet) for 2, a half-note (minim) for 4 and a whole-note (semibreve) for 8 moras, with the usual combinations and length-marks for the values in between. However, this (equivalent) musical notation is too cumbersome for our purpose, so we will not bother with it. Of course, we would not dream of suggesting that native speakers actually compute their syllable durations in terms of numbers or musical notes or anything like it. It is only a notation! Our four ST rules admittedly do not account for very minor variations in tempo or affective lengthenings or shortenings. But neither does music notation, which is just as well, as it would only complicate matters unnecessarily. As they stand, however, these four simple rules generate quite an accurate and practically useful picture of the rhythmic timing of any English sentence. If and when appropriate, this can always be further refined or supplemented by the terms accelerando (speeding up) and rallentando (slowing down), as in music. If finer distinctions should still be required, we may further sub-divide the mora into two or three points. The phonetic or psychological second is roughly equivalent to the circa 70times-per-minute (maternal) heartbeat, impinged on ones brain over nine months in the womb before birth. But to account for tempo differences between languages and speaking styles it is probably better to define it ad hoc by saying that everyday English has about 60-65 phonetic seconds per minute, slower speech 60 or less and faster languages or speaking styles 70 or more. 1 . 7 . S h o r t , m e d i u m a n d l o n g v o w e l s ( S T 1 ) . One way to arrive at the mora is by practising words with short, medium and long vowel in their first syllable: pepper, paper, pauper or rather, in phonetic spelling: . Their syllables and are respectively 2, 3 and 4 moras long.The difference between them is one mora, i.e. about 1/12 of a second, the smallest time difference human beings can comfortably handle. The first syllable in takes about two moras. To get the idea try to say the six syllables of in one second or twelve moras. It may help to first tap seconds with your hand. The first syllable in takes about

four moras. So try to say three-syllable in one second. Experiment a bit more, pronouncing the first syllable of exactly twice as long as the first syllable of . If we mis-pronounce with the timing of or with the rhythm of we will be mis-understood! Try (only for the sake of scientific experimentation of course) * * The duration of the first syllable in is about three moras, exactly in between the first syllables of and i.e. minimally longer than the former and minimally shorter than the latter. Try to say four-syllable in one second. Go on to compare the three word-rhythms. Here are some more of these sets of words with 2-3-4 mora first syllables, Emmy-Amy-army, ally-oily-early, knotty-nightie-naughty, pillar-polarPaula, mother-neither-father, merry-movie-Mary, bully-squeaky-fury. In phonetic spelling: Note that the vowel is not followed by any consonants in the same syllable (according to ST2 these would take up an extra mora) but that it makes no difference to the syllable duration if there are one or more consonants preceding the vowel. The short vowels of English, by the way, are those in and also (called shwa) and (called iota). Only (called ash- ) is sometimes medium or long. The long Vs are those in (her) and (his) . The first three are medium in u-syllables and then written . All other Vs are medium, but those in are short in u-syllables and then written Most of this is already exemplified in the examples so far, and will be returned to. 1.8. Syllable boundaries between words (ST2). Between words, the syllable boundary always coincides with the word boundary in English. Thus, the (well-known) pairs are syllabified and pronounced (!) differently. We have already seen that syllableinitial Cs take up no extra time, i.e. are said very fast, whereas syllable final Cs, according to ST2, require an extra mora. The consequent timing difference (apart from other features) in such pairs can quite easily be seen in lip-movements: slow-quick for initial , and quick-slow for final in Ordinary spellings: a nail - an ale, grey day - grade a, my seat - mice eat , say men same n, high bed - bribe Ed, Joe panicked -dope addict. (All on the the audiorecording.)

It is a well-known fact that French pronounces word-final Cs as initials before a following V. Both il est ouvert (it is open) and il est tout vert (it is all green) are pronounced In other words, French has no syllabification contrasts like English. So a French speaker could easily mispronounce * I beg your pardon? To war-cry who again?) for English she asked if it was in order to walk right on again. It goes without saying that English syllabification contrasts can be a hurdle for foreign learners, so we shall come back to that as well. Think of speech-words as mels or minimum meaningful elements. Although speech-words generally coincide with written words, they may not. A speaker often has a choice in pronouncing one writing-word as two mels, or two writing-words as one mel. Thus, at all, isnt it, double u, each other, shut up, what ever are generally single words in speech. Examples like the following may either be thought of and pronounced as single or as multiple words/mels, i.e. with or without the (word-) spaces: super calefragilistic expialidocious (Mary Poppins), how do you do, see you, B B C, a b c, who done it, New York, when ever, black bird, ill ish, ghoul ish, at random, straw berry, Malmes bury, pas time, abso lutely, im possible, Pop Eye, Mac Leans, Mac Adam, not at all, yes in deed, the United States, red coat, of course, whats happening, kiss me, I should have thought so. 1.9. Rule ST2. Syllable boundaries within words. One needs to know this to apply rule ST 2. A great deal has been written to solve this problem, but we think it may be a pseudo-problem, arising mainly from the complicated and illogical (partly etymological and grammatical) rules for syllable-division in written English. Our point is that within (speech-) words there seem to be no syllabification-contrasts of the type just observed between words. This means that syllable boundaries within words are fully predictable (and need not be indicated in the phonetic spelling). The only (rare) syllabification contrasts one could think of are of the type - foolish-ghoulish, hopelesssoapless, uneasy-unanswerable, and our solution to these is already indicated in the phonetic notations. If the item is conceptualised as a single meaning it is written and pronounced as a single word. If it is thought of as two separate concepts it is written and pronounced as two words (or mels, if one prefers). We know that very frequent word combinations such as those listed in the previous section have a habit of becoming single words, both historically and

in the speech of individual speakers. A constant general feature in such cases is for the original syllable-boundaries to move forward as much as possible. Cf. > > > > etc. Careful phonetic observation, too, and comparison with word-divisions, invariably yields early syllable-divisions: , not * , . One may also compare: hatrack, mattress, petrol, nitrate (vs. night-rate), entry, sultry, actress, and so on. So the solution to the problem seems fairly simple: within words, the syllable boundary comes early as possible. The main exception are words with V C like master), which go like after), (raspberry). 1.10. Rule ST2. Add one mora for following C or Cs. Syllable initial consonants, being said as fast as possible, are so short that it makes no difference to the length of the first syllable whether one says Eddie, heady, ready, Teddy, steady, Freddie, Reading, bedding, treading spreading, fretting, sweating, stressing, Streatham The minimum of time needed is, as it were, taken out of the following V. (Cf. audio-recording.) But if one adds one or more consonants after a vowel in the same syllable, one must add a mora. The first syllables of the last set were all 2 moras long, those of the following set (syllable boundaries indicated only where not quite obvious) take 3 moras: winter, wonder, wounding, shifty, misty, Lesley, husband, business, medicin, absent, healthy, chimney, ethnic, signal, omelette, promptness, Oxford, Chelmsford. So the short V+C(s) together have the same 3-mora duration as medium V only in paper, motor, easy, choosy, lousy, mighty, boiling. Medium V+C(s) add up to 4 moras, the same as long V only. Cf. the 3-44-mora first syllables in paper-painting-pauper, boating-boastingdaughter, feeling-fielding-fearing, booting-boosting-boring, etc. Long V+C(s) add up to 5 moras, but the difference between 4 and 5 moras is of course proportionally smaller than that between 1 and 2 or 2 and 3, and therefore becomes less noticeable and important Cf.

father-master, dirty-Thursday, morning-laundry, scary-scarcely, really-fiercely 1.11. Rule ST3. Locution, piece, byte, word, syllable. We must explain what is meant by these terms and where one draws the boundaries between them in order to understand rule ST3. Words consist of syllables. We have already discussed the syllable and where they begin and end. We have also characterised the speech-word or mel (if one prefers this term to avoid confusing it with the written word) as a minimum meaningful element, or single concept, pronounced with early syllable boundaries only. Syllables, as in pronunciation, have no meaning of their own. But every word (or mel) has a meaning of its own. So have bytes, pieces and locutions. A word (shown by space) is a single concept, a byte is a single thought, a piece is a single idea, and a locution is a single proposition. These are the meanings. The corresponding phonetic forms are as follows. A word is a so-called close-juncture phonetic entity (with early syllable boundaries only), a byte is a rhythm-group with one strong beat or gesture and a 1-mora slow-down or delay at the end, a piece is a falling or rising melody ending in a 2-mora slow-down, a locution is a single breath-group ending in a 3-mora slow-down. The same examples again. Listen to the recording and imitate. Compare the durations of the same syllable followed by or (ST3).

To repeat in some more detail: a locution is a single message or proposition, rather like a sentence in writing, said in one breath which is let go (for 3 moras) at the end and followed (unless very short as in last example) by taking another breath. It consists of one or more ideas or thoughtconstellations or pieces of information, each said on a falling or rising tune or tonegroup (not yet discussed) and stretched by about 2 moras at the end. Every piece consists of one or more bytes. Each byte is a thought or mental effort or gesture, a point in an idea, like stars in a constellation. It is separated from the next byte by a very slight delay of about one mora, and we usually, but not necessarily, jump up or down in pitch (not yet discussed) on the strongest syllable of its strongest word. Every byte consists of one headword

requiring a mental effort with or without extra words that do not require any thinking effort. The latter are just automatic reflexes to given concepts, their referents being already in mind or otherwise immediately seen or given in the situation. 1.12. Shortening of light or unstressed syllables (ST4). Repeat again the 2-mora first syllable of thus: If you now replace one by two little syllables, these will each be one mora long (or short, rather), thus: This is about the shortest syllable one can make (without fusion or overlapping of syllables), and it is the sort of duration we have in the first syllables of Note that the presence or absence of a word boundary makes no difference (if it is early). This does not mean of course that all u-syllables are only one mora long. Indeed, English is noteworthy for having very long u-syllables, especially in piece-final and locution-final positions, longer indeed than many so-called strong syllables. This is a well-known hurdle for many foreign learners, and we shall give more exercises. Rule ST4 only says that upbeat-syllables are one mora shorter than an otherwise comparable Downbeat-syllable. So if Dsyllables can be up to 4+1+3=8 moras long, as in tears, u-syllables can be maximally 4+1+3-1=7 moras long, as in -frontiers. Similarly, the final u-syllables of fellows, morning, later in are respectively 6, 5 and 4 moras long in locution-final position. In piece or byte-final position they are of course one to two moras shorter. 1 . 1 3 . R h y t h m a s a p s y c h o l o g i c a l f e a t u r e . D e g r e e s o f stress. Rhythm is a fundamental human phenomenon and perhaps the most basic ingredient of language. We have pointed out the immediate connection between mental and physical (including vocal) gestures. If one wants further proof of this one has only to look at people gesturing irrepressibly with their arms, hands, eyes and faces when speaking to somebody who cannot even see them, notably on the telephone! Much of rhythm is psychological as well as physical, and this is precisely what makes it such a difficult (albeit fascinating) subject. A common example of a psychological rhythm without a physical correlate is the ticking of a clock. When listening to it we may hear it going 1-2-1-2 (tick-tock, called duple time by musicians), or 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4

(tick-tock-tack-tock, known as quadruple time), with the ticks louder than the tocks and the tacks somewhere in between. Even 1-2-3-1-2-3 (tick-tocktock, triple time), or 1-2-3-4-5-6-1-2-3-4-5-6 (sextuple time), the latter with different arrangements of ticks, tacks and tocks are common measures, in music and elsewhere. We never hear the ticks of the clock going tick-ticktick 1-1-1-1-1-1 There is no need, by the way to make 1 the strongest, as musicians always do; one could just as well put the accent on the 2, 3 or 4. Apparently, human beings have a tendency to mentally organise even physically identical (!) ticks into groups of twos and threes consisting of one strong and one, respectively two weaker beats. Even when counting 1-2-3-45 (as Gerry Mulligan did in his well-known composition Take Five) or 12-3-4-5-6-7 , they subdivide into twos and threes. But these are perhaps the most complicated groupings within groupings, wheels within wheels, that we can manage. Most ordinary people lose track if they try any more rhythms within rhythms. It follows that anyone can easily handle three degrees of beat or stress, but hardly more than five or six. We think English distinguishes four degrees of stress, no more and no less. It also follows that one cannot have more than two equally weak ticks (or syllables) in a row. One, usually the one in the middle, will be perceived as slightly stronger, like the tack in quadruple time. So when one says at least one syllable between and and between and must be perceived or felt as slightly stronger, even it is physically no stronger than the others.

1.14. Weak and zero stress. The u-syllable in seems no longer or stronger, physically speaking, than the following nor than in from pillar to post. Nevertheless, we just decided that it must be perceived or felt as slightly stronger. We shall therefore sub-divide unstressed/upbeat u-syllables into those having minimum, zero or z-stress and those having weak or w-stress. In phonetic notation w-syllables may be marked by a small dot in front. This extra w-stress might seem rather superfluous and useless were it not for the fact that sometimes it can be heard, or rather, its misplacement by foreign speakers of English can be heard as rhythmically wrong. This can happen in particular with the w-stresses in longer word-tails, as in beautiful, political, frighten, comfort.

is a not uncommon mispronunciation for comfortable, etc. One even hears * and * instead of vegetables. If this (subtle) rhythmic difference is not a matter of timing, nor of vowel quality, one must ask what it is. The answer seems to be that (at last!) it is, or can be, a matter of vocal energy only, in the sense that there is a slightly bigger jaw movement or gesture on w than on z-sylla-bles. One may wish to check this for oneself by comparing with or with and so on, first slowly and then faster, while taking care to make all the syllables equally short. In many other cases one notices a further reduction or even complete fusion or elision of the z syllable, e.g. in Indeed, the normal pronunciation of secretary, cycling is nowadays , not * But this is not a general, obligatory rule, and more often than not it is a matter of degree. Such further shortening of z syllables therefore seems more a consequence of reduced mouth movement than an independently controllable timing feature. So we would be reluctant to add a rule ST5 saying shorten z syllables a little more if possible. That would only complicate matters. But we do clearly need a distinction between w and z stress in describing English rhythm, and also to solve one day (one hopes) the hitherto unsolved problem of syllable elision. 1.15. Strong and Medium stress. A common problem is for words like pronunciation, articulation, interpretation, superiority, divisibility to be mispronounced as * We see that not only the rhythm is then affected, but often the vowels with it. One even hears misfires like * sometimes. The last downbeat on these words is often known as primary stress, the earlier one as secondary stress, which suggests a rhythmic difference. We prefer to call them Strong and Medium (or Minor). So Downbeats subdivide into S and M stresses, the latter indicated by an open dot in phonetic notation. In the five mispronunciations just mentioned M and z stress were interchanged. These are clearly different, which we knew already, seeing that D-syllables and u-syllables have different lengths by ST4. The question to be asked is: what then is the phonetic difference between S and M stress? The answer, surprisingly, is: none at all! At least, we cannot find any rhythmic or

So

other physical difference between S and M syllables, as we even did (with some difficulty) between w and z. For instance, if you tap out one can hear no difference between a syllable with S and the same syllable with M stress. Similarly with noun-verb/adjective contrasts: Similarly, also, with some stylistic and regional contrasts: U.S. Orthographic forms: educating-education, underground, interchange, overall, anticlimax, reprimand, cigarette, mayonnaise, absolutely, catamaran, Waterloo. Also, when saying such examples on a monotone, one cannot hear any difference between S and M syllables. Try saying with a pitch-jump on and the rest on a low monotone. Why should everyone agree that there are two kinds of D-stress here when there is no (observable) physical difference between them? The answer is that firstly one can have S stresses without M stresses, but not the other way round. In that sense M is secondary or minor.Secondly, as will be explained under pitchin chapter 2, we always make pitch-jumps on words we want to contrast with other words (like and rather than or in our Penelope-examples), but we can only jump on S syllables, never on M syllables. So that is another difference, although again quite an abstract, psychological one. Rhythm, as we said, is largely in the mind. 1 . 1 6 . S , M , w , z , e t c e t e r a . As explained, we distinguish these four degrees of stress. They all show up in One may also talk about S, M, w and z words, depending on their highest degree of stress. As for their meanings: an S-word ( ) names or specifies a concept. An M-word ( ) identifies a sub-concept within a thought. A z-word ( ) only refers to a given concept, and a w-word ( ) is a marked z-word. In chapter 2 we shall see that only S-words/syllables can be Tonic, i.e. take a pitch-jump. In that case, the S becomes T. The meaning of a T-word is that it is not merely specified, but also contrasted with alternatives. If you make a pitch-jump on kipper you are saying: I had something else in mind, but I am rejecting that alternative and choosing the concept kipper instead. In order to show not only rhythm but also intonation, T-syllables may be indicated in the phonetic notation by a little black triangle instead of the S-

mark used until now: for an upward jump in pitch, for a downward jump, and for an upward jump plus fall on the same syllable. The meanings of these three tones will be discussed in chapter 2. The remaining stress-marks may then be replaced by if high-pitched (i.e. after an upward jump) and by if low-pitched (i.e. in all other cases) This is demonstrated in 1.18 below and also in
Total 400 moras = 33 seconds 4 moras.

48 47 51 ---------+ 400

1.17. Some timing exercises. 1 Say at the speed of pepper, i.e. 5 or 6 syllables per second at equal intervals. This is a 222222 rhythm. 2 Say If you then leave out the glottal stops, you will get: a 4444 rhythm. 3 Ditto: 6666 rhythm. 4 Repeat a 22242 rhythm: Similarly with 24242, 22622, 62622, 24262, 24642. 5 First say Then say in the time of one thus: 6 A 222122-rhythm: Also 242122, 22612, 24162. 7 Say 3333 rhythm. 8 Say these rhythms: 22322, 32322, 12232, 12242, 12252, 12262. 1 . 1 8 . P r a c t i s i n g S T 1 - 4 . Please write the syllable durations in pencil over the last five lines below. Their values should add up to the totals on the right and are also given in the orthographic version underneath. The notation also shows whether the tune rises or falls at the end of each piece. Also on the audio-recording.
1 6 48 5 2 1 5 1 2 3 3 2 2 1 3 3 2 1 2 1 2

The1 North6 Wind5 and2 the1 Sun 5 were1 disputing2-3-3 which2 was2 the1 stronger3-3, when 2 a2 traveller2-1-2 came4 along1-5, wrapped4 in 2 a 1 warm 6 cloak 7. They2 agreed1-5 that 2 the 1 one 4 who1 first6 succeeded2-3-3 in2 making3-3 the1 traveller2-1-2 take 4 his 2 cloak 4 off 5 should2 be 1 considered2-2-3 stronger3-2 than 2 the1 other2-4. Then 4 the1 North5 Wind4 blew5 as 2 hard6 as 2 he 1 could6, but 2 the 1 more6 he 1 blew5, the 1 more 3 closely4-2 did2 the 1 traveller2-1-2 fold5 his 2 cloak 5 around1-4 him 4, and2 at2 last 6 the1 North5 Wind4 gave4 up 4 the1 attempt 1-6. Then4 the1 Sun 4 shone3 out 4 warmly5-3, and2 immediately1-3-1-2-2 the1 traveller2-1-2 took 3 off3 his 2 cloak7. And2 so 4 the1 North6 Wind4 was 2 obliged 1-5 to 1 confess 2-5 that2 the1 Sun 4 was2 the1 stronger3-3 of2 the1 two 6. 1 . 1 9 . English word-stress. With the information given so far (in outline) on degrees of stress, rhythmic groupings into syllables, words, bytes, pieces and locutions and on the phonetic manifestations thereof, one can in principle work out and control the rhythm of any locution, IF one knows the structure of the individual words and compounds. But if you do not know which syllables in Penelope or Christmas pudding normally take S or M stress, you are in trouble. Native speakers have no problem with this because they learn words by ear, but foreign learners acquire English mostly from books, and ordinary spelling is notoriously misleading in this respect. Traditionally, therefore, a distinction is made between word-stress, compound-stress and sentence-stress. English has free word-stress, as shown for instance by bungalow, potato, kangaroo The syllable taking the Strong stress when a word is said in isolation is the Accented or A-syllable. Although there are some regularities, the place of the A is as unpredictable in principle as the number of syllables a word will have. This creates considerable problems even for speakers of other free-stress languages like German or Russian. Most languages, however, have fixed word-stress, i.e. always on the same syllable or in some other way fully predictable. In

4 1 52

2 1

15

1 6

52 53 49

French, the stress is always on the last syllable of a word. It goes without saying that for speakers of fixed-stress languages English word-stress is the biggest prob-lem in learning to speak the language. To see my point, just read the follow-ing words aloud from the orthography moustache, anemone, preface, recipe, lapel, Arabic, dessert, attributive, advertisement, irreparable, carbon monoxide, admirable, definitive, horizon, thermometer, omnipotent

1.20. Word-structure. It follows that our biggest task will be to explain and teach the rhythmic structure of the 10,000-plus words a student of English must acquire. Here are the main points to be worked out in detail later. English words consist of one central or accented syllable, which we call A. The A-syllable may be preceded by a head h and/or followed by a tail t, thus: - (h)A(t). Heads and tails are usually one or two syllables long, and rarely longer than four or ve syllables. They consist of B and c syllables. Examples: -A, -Ac, -Ac, -cA, -cA, BcA, -AcB, -BcAc, -BcAcB, BcAccB, - BcBcBcBcBcBcAc. A, B and c are usually equivalent to S, M and z when the word is said in isolation, but we saw in the Penelope examples that many words (especially very common, short words like your, her, to, this, gave) have no S or M at all in connected speech. So it is makes sense to distinguish between abstract or psychological A, B and c, and concrete, physical S, M, w and z. Rhythm, we said, is based on the alternation of downbeats and upbeats. This is known as the Rhythmic Alternation Principle or RAP We found that in connected speech one cannot have more than two z-syllables in a row, but it is possible sometimes for two or or more downbeats to follow each other, for instance in four great big fat black cats. In words, however, RAP imposes severe restrictions, as follows: (i) no As and/or Bs next to each other, (ii) no more than two cs in a row, (iii) no more than one c at word-beginning and end. The effect of this is to rule out the vast majority of potential word-structures, such as BA, cBA, ccA, ABBc, Accc, BcccAcc and so on, leaving only a relatively small number of possibilities.

1.21. Compound-structure. English compound stressing, too, offers surprises. A compound consists of two (or more) words in a head (X) modifier (Y) relationship. They are usually said as a single byte, i.e. as one single thought consisting of a main and a subsidiary concept. Example: she told off the pig-headed bank-manager straightaway for being so pig-headed. Note the two stressings for pig-headed, aYX compound. It shows that the relationship between sentence and compound stress also needs explaining Most compound are nominal. Most of these are XY, e.g. beauty spot, door handle, but some are YX, e.g. Christmas pudding, front door, Park Lane, most of them to do with food-items and locations. Verbal and adjectival compounds are generally YX: make up, understand, absent minded, red hot, but some are XY: seasick, fire-proof. More about all this in due course. 1 . 2 2 . M e a s u r e o r b a r , f o o t , b y t e . Music is organised in terms of measures, generally in duple (e.g. march), triple (waltz) or quadruple (foxtrot) time. Nowadays, measures are usually called bars, after the vertical bar sepa-rating the measures in music notation. Hence: one speaks of two, three or four beats to the bar, with the first beat always a downbeat. All measures in a piece of music have in principle the same form. Indeed the art of performing consists to a large extent of deviating in very subtle ways from this rigid underlying structure, in order not to sound like a mechanical piano (or musician). A good musician upsets his listeners expectations somewhat by accelerandos and rallentandos, syncope, and silent beats, thereby creating a certain amount of tension. But there is always strict regularity behind it. The traditional measure of verse is the foot. This, too is also in duple or triple time, i.e. with two or three beats/syllable to the foot, but as far as we know, never in quadruple or more complex measures. However, in verse, the downbeat need not be on the first beat, as in music. So there are two possibilities in duple time, called iamb (weak-strong, as in iambic pentameters) and trochee (strong-weak). And there are three possibilities in triple time: dactyl (sww, as in limericks), anapaest (wws) and amphibrach (wsw), the latter quite rare. Verse also depends on regular repetition of the same metre. A good reader, like a musician, will vary it somewhat, but small children for instance tend to read verses like doggerel i.e. perfectly regularly. Note also that the foot boundaries in verse are often in the middle of word, as in the following trochaic tetrameters by Wordsworth: when all/ at once/ I saw/ a crowd|| a host/ of gol/ den daf/ fo dils.

In reading aloud for instance: Speech is far less rigid in these respects than verse or music, hence our use of the term byte rather than bar, measure or foot. The main thing to remember is that bytes are not all the same, so speech does not exhibit the regular timing of verse or music. Since bytes correspond to single thoughts or mental gestures, they can be quite short or quite long, and the S-beat can in principle be on any word or syllable within it. Cf. versus one flew over the cuckoos nest last week versus I was reading One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest last week. The brain tends to produce thoughts or gestures at about two or three per second, which may, but need not result in a certain rhythmic regularity. But we do not accept the common view that the downbeats in speech must be isochronous, i.e. at equal intervals in time.