The Communicative Grammar of English Workbook - Edward Woods, Rudy Coppieters 2002

1.6. Stress
Unit one. Spoken and written English

Sections 33-35; 633; 743-745

The rhythm of spoken English can be felt in the sequence of stressed syllables. Between one stressed syllable and another there may occur one or more unstressed syllables.

Stressed syllables: (i) one-syllable words belonging to one of the major word-classes

(ii) accented syllables of words of more than one syllable of major word-classes.

Unstressed syllables: (i) one-syllable words belonging to one of the minor word-classes

(ii) unaccented syllables of words of more than one syllable.

In most contexts, prepositional adverbs are normally stressed while one-syllable prepositions are usually unstressed.

Task one *

Put stress marks in front of stressed syllables in the following sentences.

1. The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.

2. The tourist forgot to buy a ticket at the counter.

3. Janet is throwing a party for her twentieth birthday.

4. We met in Rome, visited the sights and then flew home.

5. John is fond of chocolate but Mary thoroughly dislikes it.

6. I was admiring the landscape that unfolded in front of my eyes.

7. This unexpected encounter with my worst enemy really upset me.

8. Do you remember the dramatic events of September the eleventh?

9. The United Nations decided to lift the embargo imposed on military equipment.

10. As a true democrat, I sincerely hope that democracy will always prevail over tyranny.

11. Slow progress has been made to persuade the warring factions to accept a compromise.

12. The photographer had taken a dozen pictures, all of which appeared in glossy magazines.

Task two **

Specify whether the underlined words in the following text are stressed or not.

Many people tend to be put off learning foreign languages as it also means taking in a lot of foreign grammar and vocabulary. Having attended two or three classes, they simply give up and put the whole thing on the backburner.

As time goes by. however, those who dropped out are beginning to wonder how they will be getting on in the country they’ve chosen to go to for their next holiday. So they happily turn to a popular phrasebook written for the average tourist, convinced that they will easily get by under foreign skies.

After their plane has touched down, these tourists cheerfully get through customs control, where the stock phrases come out all right. Then they set off in a hired car, driving on and on ... until they run out of petrol or the car breaks down, leaving them stranded on a lonely road. The nearest farm is miles away but, fortunately, a local person happens to drive by, slow down and back up their car. Now the poor tourists are in for a nasty surprise: no more stock phrases but sentences they’ve never heard or used before. So the conversation virtually breaks down and all of a sudden the tourists remember their language classes, making a silent vow to pick up again where they left off.

Task three **

(a) Arrange the underlined words in two groups depending on which word-class they belong to.

(b) Check whether there is a match between stress and word-class.