The basic rules of English rhythm
(enclitic tendency)
The stressed syllables in an intonation group follow each other at regular intervals of time; only in very long rhythmical groups, containing many unstressed syllables, this regularity is not strictly observed.
Most non-initial rhythmical groups begin with a stressed syllable; unstressed syllables occuring inside an intonation group have a tendency to cling to the preceding stressed syllable, forming its enclitics; only initial unstressed syllables always cling to the following stressed syllable, forming its proclitics.
The greater the number of unstressed syllables intervening between stressed ones, the more rapidly they are pronounced.
Initial unstressed syllables are always pronounced rapidly, the vowels in them are shortened.
The unstressed syllables that follow the stressed ones are pronounced rather quickly. They form a cluster with stressed syllables. And it takes equal time to pronounce the stressed syllable plus any given number of the following unstressed syllables before the next stress.
Each intonation group has a rhythm of its own, depending on the degree of semantic importance attached to it in comparison with the other intonation group of the utterance.
In the examples of rhythmical groups of different structures given below, rhythmical groups are marked with a curve below the line.
ˋN
o.
ˋWait
for me. They are ˈvery
ˋhappy.
I ˈhaven’t ˈtime to ˋdo it. ˈOne can ˈnever be ˋsure.
I t ˈisn’t eˈxactly what I ˋwant.
The influence of rhythm is very important.
As it is necessary to pronounce stressed syllables at more or less regular intervals of time and to fit in unstressed syllables between them, it influence on the length of English sound especially vowels. Stressed vowels are shorter if followed by unstressed syllables than if followed by another stressed syllable.
'Ann 'went to the ˋcinema.
Eg. 'Ann has 'gone to the ˋcinema.
When there are many unstressed syllables they are pronounced quicker and there vowels are shorter than when there are few of them.
Eg. She 'thinks you 'came to ˋsee her.
She 'thinks you should have 'come by 'six o’ ˋclock.
There is a strong tendency in connected English speech to avoid stressing two syllables in succession. Under the influence of this peculiarity words normally pronounced with two equally strong stresses or with a primary or secondary stress in isolation, very often lose one of the stresses in connected speech.
'Un'known: He was an 'unknown ˋpoet.
He was 'quite unˋknown.
'Fif'teen: He is 'fifteen years ˋold.
He is 'just fifˋteen.
'Good-'looking: She is a 'good-looking ˋgirl.
She is 'quite good-ˋlooking.
ˈConver'sation: It was a 'short converˋsation.
The 'conversation ˋstopped.
Under the influence of the same tendency of English rhythm the alteration of stressed and unstressed syllables, word with full lexical meaning may loose their stress in a sense-group.
Eg. He 'left ˋLondon. – 'John left ˋLondon.
'Very ˋgood. – 'Not very ˋgood.
'How ˋmany? – 'How many ˋbooks are there on the 'table?