English is a Stress-Timed Language

As opposed to syllable-timed languages like French, Spanish, Italian or Hindi, syllables in an English sentence are stressed at approximately equal intervals. In sentence stress, the accent, or stress, is on certain types of words within the sentence, giving English its unique rythym. A sentence in spoken English is composed of two types of words: content words and structure words. Look at the examples below:

 

Content Words                                      

Main Verbs: go, eat, sit, speak               

Nouns: restaurant, sofa                  

Adjectives: big, Italian                       

Adverbs: softly               

Negative AuxiliaryVerbs: can’t, don’t, aren’t          

Demonstratives: this, that, those                 

Question Words: who, which, where, what, when, why, how 

Structure Words

Pronouns: I, you, he, she, we, they         

Prepositions: on, under, with, near, in

Articles: the, a, some

Conjunctions: for, but, and, so, yet, nor, or

Auxiliary Verbs: can, should, must

Verb "to be" : is, was, am

 

 

Here are some examples:

 

I'm going to eat at the Italian restaurant.

 

You’re sitting on the sofa, but you aren’t listening to me.

 

She’s speaking softly, so it’s difficult for me to hear her.

 

Notice how, in the first sentence, only the content words (verbs, adjective, noun) are stressed. The same is true for the other examples (verbs, noun, adverb, adjective). When you say the unstressed words in between, they sound like they're almost swallowed, don't they?

 

As the key words in a sentence, content words provide the meaning, while structure words provide the form. If you spoke just the content words aloud, you could still derive some meaning, even if the sentence is incompletely formed. Check out this graphic:

 

 

 

Although only the nouns are stressed, this is a nice illustration of an English stress pattern. Because English is a stress-timed language, there is a beat, or rythym, to spoken English. Think of content words as beats and structure words as fillers between the beats. Unlike Chinese, English is a non-tonal language. In tone languages, the meaning of words is distinguished by pitch (an absolute frequency assigned to a specific note). A spoken word's meaning can change according to its pitch.  In English, on the other hand, changes in pitch may emphasize or express emotion, rather than impart meaning. (Thanks to Paul Shoebottom at the Frankfurt International School for that explanation).

 

Say this sentence out loud:

 

We're speaking English and watching the World Cup in the student lounge.

 

Spoken language and music have much in common. Listen to the music. Catch the rhythm. And try not to stress out.