Rhythm and sentence stressOnline version Phonetics and Phonology by Andrés Mayero 1 What is rhythm? a The way in which accented and unaccented syllables follow each other in the utterance. b The music of the spoken language. c The way we pronounce different syllables in a sentence. d The quantity of stressed words in a utterance. 2 What is said to be the main difference between English and Spanish rhythm? a English has a syllable-timed rhythm while Spanish has a stress-timed rhythm. b Spanish has a syllable-timed rhythm while English has an unstress-timed rhythm. c Spanish has a syllable-timed rhythm while English has a stress-timed rhythm. 3 Which elements make syllables prominent? a Pitch movement, stress, volume and intonation. b Pitch movement, vowel quality, length and stress. c Vowel quality, intonation, length and stress. d Vowel quality, pitch movement, volume and intonation. 4 True or False: content words are stressed, structure words are unstressed. a True b False 5 True or False: hesitations and false starts are predictable pauses. a True b False 6 Among the content words, in each sentence there is usually one word more stressed than the others: that´s the... a Contrastive word. b Prominent word. c Accented word. d Focus word. 7 Which word is unaccented when it forms part of a place name? a Road b Park c Street d Lane 8 True of False: Demonstrative and possessive pronouns, and interrogative words are frequently unaccented. a True b False 9 In the following image, and according th accentuation rules in connected speech, which word is left unaccented? a First "Blond". b "James". c Second "Blond". d All are accented. 10 What is the name of the rhythmic pattern that can be heard in Shakespeare´s sonnets? a Iambic dimeter b Iambic pentameter. c Old-style pentameter. d Dactyl pentameter Feedback 8 These are frequently accented. 9 Repetitions and synonyms are left unaccented.
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