English Audio: Speech and Pronunciation

Re: Intonation

Kooyeen — Wed, 14 May 2008 20:34:41 GMT

Well, I didn't consider the stress on "pizza", but it's stressed, yes. I was only considering the first part, "Joe and Lenny", or whatever they were called. And I don't know why, but I'd stress "Lenny", the second name, if I were trying to say that sentence in a neutral way, without adding anything after it, no context whatsoever. But as soon as I imagine a context and other clauses or sentences around it, I'd tend to stress the first noun, "Joe". But as I said, I am not good at this, and I am not a native speaker... Plus, I believe there are so many different intonation and stress patterns for every context that it's virtually impossible to discuss these things in a forum like this, just using written English. I'll see if I can find a video on Youtube and analyze it, to find similar intonation patterns.

Re: Intonation

Avangi — Wed, 14 May 2008 01:13:39 GMT

Hi Kooyeen, I was hoping you'd get in on this.

I thought I had a grasp of what everyone was saying, but now I'm totally confused. We've talked about stressing three words in the initial sentence, J, L, & P. Somebody says stress L. Somebody says no, stress J. Somebody says L & P. I honestly can't tell if when you guys say, "stress J" you mean "stress only J."

If the sentence is new information, I'd stress all three equally. If I want to show a contrast between two couples, I put a heavier stress on the second name of the second couple. I'd put a heavier stress on the first name only if the second names were the same. I wish you'd give an example of stressing the first name and adding something.

Bob and his wife are at the door. (equal B, W, and D)

John and his wife will be late. (equal) Ed and his wife can't make it. (strong E)

John and his wife will be late. Ed and his sister can't make it. (strong S)

Sam and his mother are coming. (strong S & M - surprise)

(This example turns out to be weak, because it sounds like a whole series of married couples, in which case the "wife" would always be un-stressed, but I was looking as each line alone.)

-A.

Re: Intonation

CalifJim — Wed, 14 May 2008 01:09:24 GMT

Joe gets phrase-final stress. The word Joe completes the noun phrase that forms the subject of the sentence.

Had it been Joe and Len ate some pizza, Len would have got the phrase-final stress.

Re: Intonation

Kooyeen — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:12:05 GMT

Belly
Len and Joe eat some pizza

Question: 1) Why pizza but not pizzas here?

2) My teacher told me to stress on Joe, but I did stress on Len and pizza because this sentence presents new information/. Could you help me out?

Ok, consider that I actually don't know anything about any rules on stress or intonation. I've always had trouble with sentence stress, but I never focused on it, so I just trust my ear and I am still learning. That said...

I would put the stress on the second name, Joe, if I had to say that sentence by itself, in a normal and neutral way. But I would tend to stress the first name, Len, as soon as something else followed that sentence, for example if I had to add information or go on saying what I have to say.
I remember Ann Cook talked about similar things in her American accent course. It was confusing though, She said to stress the noun in descriptive phrases that consist of an adjective + a noun.
This is a nice house. (stress on "house", not on "nice")
Then at the end of the book, in a hidden chapter in an appendix, she's like "Wait a second, what I said is not true. It's only true if you say isolated sentences. If you put that in speech, you would often stress the adjective." - Ouch! And that's true, I noticed it a lot of times. It's "sentence balancing", and it's difficult to explain, impossible to understand. So just forget it, just try to listen to native speakers as much as you can and maybe one day you'll have picked up the right stress patterns.
That's what my ear told me: if stress the first name it sounds like I'm going to add something and go on with the story. Of course my ear is not a native listener.

Re: Intonation

Avangi — Tue, 13 May 2008 04:52:31 GMT

Maybe they shared a pizza and only consumed half of it. Here it would be the same as eating some ice cream. If it's a single serving type of ice cream, like a cone or a bar, you could say they ate some ice creams. (countable vs uncountable)

I see no reason not to stress Len, Joe, and pizza equally, unless you're correcting an error. Len and Bill ate some pizza. (reply) No, Len and Joe ate some pizza.

Best wishes, - A.

Edit. I'm trying to imagine why your teacher would say that. I can hear it with a slight pause after "Joe." Mary and Kate ate some birthday cake. But Len and Joe, ate some pizza. (calling attention to the contrast - It's done with a sort of high-to-low glissando, or possibly two different pitches - speaking of intonation.)

Re: Intonation

Clive — Tue, 13 May 2008 04:45:23 GMT

Hi,

Len and Joe eat some pizza

Question: 1) Why pizza but not pizzas here? The word is being used ina general, no-count way. eg Do you like pizza?

2) My teacher told me to stress on Joe, but I did stress on Len and pizza because this sentence presents new information/. Could you help me out? I agree with you.

Best wishes, Clive

Intonation

Belly — Tue, 13 May 2008 04:41:23 GMT

Len and Joe eat some pizza

Question: 1) Why pizza but not pizzas here?

2) My teacher told me to stress on Joe, but I did stress on Len and pizza because this sentence presents new information/. Could you help me out?