a key feature in pronunciation is stress in previous lessons I've talked about word stress but now I'd like to take the time to talk about stress in phrases and in sentences I'm sure you've noticed that in English we do not stress every single word equally we don't stress all the words equally because some words are more important than others in this lesson I'd like to help you understand the difference between content words and function words you may be asking at this point why do I need to know about content words and function words well because
then you'll know which words distress when you speak and read aloud in English knowing which words distress does not simply make your speech sound more natural knowing which words to stress can be the difference between being understood correctly and not being understood being misunderstood because stressing different words can create different meanings the objectives of our lesson are to be able to identify content words and function words so that you will speak at the sentence level with correct and natural stress be able to use stress for emphasis and understand changes in meaning when when stress is
used for emphasis by other speakers so let's move on now and I'll explain the difference between content words and function words let's talk about the basic difference between content words and function words content words carry meaning function words help create grammatical structures content words are nouns such as Jennifer be Beauty adjectives for example exciting wonderful verbs such as grew and in the phrase have grown it's the main verb grown that's a Content word adverbs for example slowly widely number are also content words such as two hundreds first question words for example what how why long
prepositions meaning more than one syllable for example against over demonstratives meaning this that these those interjections such as ow ouch now let's look at function words most pronouns are our function words for example the personal pronouns such as I you object pronouns such as me them forms of to be as the main verb modal verbs such as can and should auxiliary verbs or helping verbs for example in the phrase had been wasted had been are the auxiliary verbs and they are function words many little words are function words in English such as short prepositions one
syllable prepositions on of to for example possessive adjectives your his their our Etc articles such as the A and and conjunctions such as and but so when we speak in phrases and at the sentence level we usually stress content words and not function words a stressed word is said more loudly longer and at a higher pitch meaning our voice goes up when a Content word has more than one syllable the stress syllable will be said more loudly longer and at a higher pitch exercise one listen and repeat be sure to stress the content words example
I choose to see all that is interesting and beautiful the content words are marked and bold in longer words such as interesting and beautiful I've underlined the stress syllable and I'll follow this practice throughout the lesson let's move on as I read I'm going to use the mouse to help you sense the rhythm of each sentence number one Autumn is coming two the caterpillar answered in a bored tone three I love to see The Shining Moon on a cool Autumn night four if you want a better view climb upward five The Climb had been exhausting
six the caterpillar found itself being lifted into the wind stress within thought groups when words are grouped into meaningful phrases there is usually one word that receives the most stress that word word is generally the final content word example I see the same world as you but I am able to see past all that is saddening and horrifying in this example content words are still marked in bold but the final content word in each thought group is highlighted in purple that content word in purple is the one that receives Lees the most stress in that
phrase again I see the same world as you but I am able to see past all that is saddening and horrifying stress and fast speech native English speakers may break the rules of stress in Faster speech this happens most often when there is a phrase with a cluster of content words instead of stressing each content word in that clust cluster the speaker may choose to alternate the stress so that there is a more natural flow in Rhythm examples the bee grew annoyed in this sentence we have three content Words Be grew annoyed but I choose
not to stress grew so that I have alternating stress the resulting rhythm is the be grew annoyed d d one and two next example Autumn brings changes of astonishing Beauty again we have more content words Than Words being stressed the verb brings is not stressed because I want to create a good rhythm in the sentence I alternate the stress and what results is a rhythm like this D D D D D D one and two and three and four Autumn brings changes of astonishing Beauty exercise two listen to the sentence as it is read at
a slow rate and again at a fast rate identify which content words are stressed in each reading reading one the ground grows hard and the wind grows cold in this slower reading all content words are stressed they are ground grows hard wind grows cold reading two the ground grows hard and the wind grows cold in this faster reading only four content words are being stressed ground hard wind cold the resulting rhythm is 1 and 2 three and four d d d listen again the ground grows hard and the wind grows cold
