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Unit 17: Connected English Speech: Accent

number of unstressed syllables. Some writers have developed theories of English rhythm in which a Notes
unit of rhythm, the foot, is used (with a parallel in the metrical analysis of verse). The foot begins
with a stressed syllable and includes all following unstressed syllables up to (but not including) the
following stressed syllable. The example sentence given above would be divided into feet as follows:

1 2 3 4 5
‘Walk ‘down the ‘path to the ‘end of the ca ‘nal

Some theories of rhythm go further than this, and point to the fact that some feet are stronger than
others, producing strong-weak patterns in larger pieces of speech above the level of the foot. To
understand how this could be done, let’s start with a simple example: the word ‘twenty’ has one
strong and one weak syllable, forming one foot. A diagram of its rhythmical structure can be made,
where s stands for “strong” and w stands for “weak”.

s w
twen ty

The word ‘places’ has the same form:

s w
pla ces

Now consider the phrase ‘twenty places’, where ‘places’ normally carries stronger stress than ‘twenty’
(i.e. is rhythmically stronger). We can make our “tree diagram” grow to look like this:

w s

s w s w
twen ty pla ces

If we then look at this phrase in the context of a longer phrase ‘twenty places further back’, and build
up the ‘further back’ part in a similar way, we would end up with an even more elaborate structure:

w s

w s w s

s w s w s w s
twen ty pla ces fur ther back
By analysing speech in this way we are able to show the relationships between strong and weak
elements, and the different levels of stress that we find. The strength of any particular syllable can be

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