Phonetics________________2nd

Year LMD Teacher: Mr.Aounali . W

Page 1 of 2

Exercise one: Skim through the transcribed sentence and supply it with the orthographic version

Exercise two: This time, transcribe this sentence (grammatical words are likely to use weak form

PRACTICE ON SENTENCE STRESS PATTERNS

Phonetics________________2nd

Year LMD Teacher: Mr.Aounali . W

Page 2 of 2

Exercise three: Here is a simple exercise to help you develop the art of using emphatic stress

Sentence with emphatic (contrastive) stress Transcription & Suggested meaning I didn’t say he stole the money I didn’t say he stole the money I didn’t say he stole the money I didn’t say he stole the money I didn’t say he stole the money I didn’t say he stole the money

This time, read the following sentence aloud using emphatic stress then match it to its suggested meaning:

1. I said she might consider a new haircut a) Not just a haircut.

2. I said she might consider a new haircut b) It’s just a possibility.

3. I said she might consider a new haircut c) It was my idea.

4. I said she might consider a new haircut d) Not something else.

5. I said she might consider a new haircut e) Don’t you understand me?

6. I said she might consider a new haircut f) Not another person.

7. I said she might consider a new haircut g) She should have think about it, it’s a good idea.

Exercise four: Transcribe the following short passage and mark the primary stress when necessary

1- I can1 do it. Can

1 you? …………………………………………….……

2- What are you looking at2? ……………………………………………..……

3- What did you do1 that

3 for

2 ? …………………………………………………

4- Where does he come from2? ……………………………………………..……

5- What were you dreaming of2 ? ……………………………………………..……

6- She’s coming to1 Birmingham not form

1 Birmingham.

………………………………………………………………….

7- Jane went to Oxford and to Cambridge.

………………………………………………………………..

8- As long as you study seriously, you won’t4 fail in any subject.

………………………………………………………………………………………..

9- What’s5 his

6 name? His name is John ……………………………………………….

1 CAN in this context is contrastively/emphatically stressed /kæn/ .

2 AT is pronounced with strong form /æt/ when it comes in final position though it remains unstressed.

3 THAT is always unstressed wherein we use the strong form /ðæt/ as a demonstrative but weak form /ðət/ as a conjunction.

4 WON’T auxiliary verbs and modals are used in strong form when they’re negative contracted form (isn’t, aren’t, wasn’t,

weren’t, can’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t, don’t, haven’t, hasn’t, mustn’t, shan’t, shouldn’t) 5 WHAT’S in contractions we use the strong form (I’m, it’s, they’re, I’ll, he’ll, she’ll, there’ll, I’ve, you’ve, I’d, we’d, who’s)

6 HIS here the initial /h/ is usually dropped (his, he, her, has, have, who) but /h/ is kept at the beginning of a sentence or emphatic