noun, predicate adjective, or the negative word not. Compare
these examples:
Can you help me? (Can is reduced.)
Yes, I can help you. (Can is reduced.)
Yes, I CAN. (Can is not reduced; there’s no verb after it.)
Are you listening to me? (Are is reduced.)
Yes, I’m listening. (Am is reduced.)
No, I’m not listening. (Am is reduced.)
Yes, I AM. (Am is not reduced.)
No I’m not. (Am is reduced.)
Is the new student lazy? (Is is reduced.)
If he is, we’ll soon !nd out. (Is isn’t reduced, but will is.)Here’s another case when we don’t reduce function words
when the rhythm requires it. Prepositions are usually
reduced, but when a preposition is the last word in a
sentence or clause, we don’t reduce it. In this case, we don’t
necessarily emphasize the preposition; we just don’t reduce
it. This sometimes happens in questions or in sentences with
adjective clauses or noun clauses.
What are you listening to?
Where can I plug my computer in?
That’s the man I wanted to introduce you to.
The painting I’m looking at is strange.
I don’t know where he’s from.When a word is really a main verb: Some verbs can be
used as either main verbs or auxiliary verbs, like have, do,
and be going to. We reduce these forms when they’re
auxiliary verbs, but generally not when they’re main verbs.
For example:
I’m going to study can become I’m gonna study.
But I’m going to school cannot become * I’m gonna school.We could have studied can become We coulda studied.
But We could have fun cannot become * We coulda fun.Changes in word stress
We know that in English, every polysyllabic word has one
stressed syllable. However, there are times when the position
of stress in a word can change if this will help maintain a
more comfortable overall rhythm. Having two stressed
syllables together makes an awkward rhythm; an alternation
of stressed and unstressed syllables is more natural sounding.
Therefore, the stress sometimes moves to create an
alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. (Ladefoged
2006 p. 115) We can call this process variable word
stress. Here are some examples of when this stress change
can happen:
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