SUPRASEGMENTAL

FEATURES OF ENGLISH
STRESS

Stress is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a

word or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence.
WORD STRESS

In any word with more than one syllable, one syllable will be 'highlighted'. This means that it is
pronounced in a stronger way than the other syllable or syllables in the word.
If a noun or an adjective has 2 syllables, the word stress is usually on the first syllable.

If a verb has 2 syllables, the word stress is usually on the second syllable.
Examples:
• You will progress a lot with your English if you follow this rule. (verb)
• You will make a lot of progress with your English if you follow this rule. (noun)
SENTENCE STRESS

Like word stress, sentence stress can help you to understand spoken English, even rapid spoken
English. Sentence stress is what gives English its rhythm or "beat", word stress is accent on one
syllable within a word. Sentence stress is accent on certain words within a sentence.
• Example:

Will you sell my house I've gone to Spain ?

In the sentence above the four key words ( sell, house, gone and Spain) are the content wordsand are
all stressed.
The additional information complete the sentence are called structure words and are all unstressed.
FUNCTION WORDS

Function words are necessary for grammar, but do not receive stress in spoken English. Function
words are those words that are weaker and shorter. They include auxiliary verbs, prepositions,
conjunctions, determiners, and possessive adjectives. These words are less important in expressing the
meaning of the sentence.
• Example:

The sly brown fox jumped gracefully over the lazy dog and cat
CONTENT WORDS

Content words include main verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.

If you remove the content words from a sentence, you will not understand the sentence. The sentence
has no sense or meaning because content words are the key words of a sentence.

They are the important words that carry the meaning or sense—the real content. English is a very
rhythmic language because of this tendency to accent only certain words.
• Examples:
• I looked in the car but I didn’t see my keys.
• I don’t like tea unless it has milk.
RHYTHM

Rhythm is the sense of movement in speech.

• Example:

An example of rhythm is the rising and falling of someone's voice.

CLASS
ACTIVITIES
WORD STRESS

Word stress tables

When dealing with word stress, it is beneficial to draw attention to the differences in stress patterns in
word families. When dealing with a topic, choose a group of words which can easily be categorized
according to their stress. For example, if you are teaching occupations, you can choose the following word
families and their stress patterns:
Oo Ooo oOoo
photo photograph photographer
The students can complete the table in their notebooks or it can be done as a class activity by sticking the
words on the whiteboard.
SENTENCE STRESS

Singing songs

Put a few lines of a sing on the board. Mark the stressed syllables. Either sing it for the students or let them listen to a
CD. Chorally drill and repeat.

For example: Ticket to Ride: Lennon & McCartney

I think I’m gonna be sad I think it’s today, yeah.

The girl that’s driving me mad is going away, yeah.

The students can practise for homework using YouTube.

Be careful with your choice of song as many songs stress syllables that would normally be

unstressed.
CONTENT AND FUNCTION WORDS

Listen and repeat

I choose to see all that is interesting and beautiful.
Be sure to stress the content words.
FUNCTION WORDS
First students need to be able to immediately distinguish between content and function words. They have to write ‘C’ for content and ‘F’ for
function.
Examples:
-went (C)
-with( F)
-just(F)
-quickly(C)
RHYTHM

Speed dictations
The boys are good/ the boy is good/ the boy was good.
Physical movement
Finger-clicking , clapping, tapping, jumping ( in time to the rhythm of the sentence)
Songs
The rhythm of english lends itself to rock, and pop music, while rap involves fitting words
into distinct beat.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

PARTS OF SPEECH. Webapps.towson.edu. (2021). Retrieved 8 July 2021, from

https://webapps.towson.edu/ows/PtsSpch.htm.

Phonetics - Suprasegmentals. Encyclopedia Britannica. (2021). Retrieved 8 July

2021, from https://www.britannica.com/science/phonetics/Suprasegmentals.
Content and Function Words in English. ThoughtCo. (2021). Retrieved 8 July 2021,
from https://www.thoughtco.com/content-and-function-words-1211726.

Library, E. (2021). Sentence Stress. Esllibrary.com. Retrieved 8 July 2021, from

https://esllibrary.com/blog/sentence-stress.
THANK YOU!