English Intonation and Stress Patterns

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Study Notes

English is a stressed language which means some words are given more emphasis and are spoken longer.
Many other languages like French are considered syllabic, where every syllable is pronounced with the same emphasis.

The syllable with the most stress is called the nuclear syllable.
The nuclear syllable carries the main focus of information and any new information.

The two most common pitch movements are rising and falling.
A rising pitch indicates a question, while a falling pitch indicates a statement.
A rising tone at the end of a sentence can indicate incompleteness, while a falling tone indicates completeness.

Intonation is the rise and fall of the voice during speech.
It shows the speaker's attitude, certainty, uncertainty, enthusiasm, boredom, and so on.
As listeners, we are able to interpret these attitudes through variations in pitch and loudness.

There are four basic types of word stress: tonic stress, contrastive stress, emphatic stress, and new information stress.

Tonic stress refers to the syllable in a word which receives the most stress in an intonation unit.
A sentence can have more than one intonation unit and therefore more than one tonic stress.
The final tonic stress in a sentence usually receives the most stress.

Emphatic stress is used to emphasize a particular word in a sentence.
This emphasis calls attention to the extraordinary nature of what you want to emphasize.

Contrastive stress is used to point out the difference between one object and another.
It tends to be used with determiners such as 'this, that, these and those'.

Clayton Christensen expresses gratitude to colleagues, mentors, and industry executives who contributed to his research and the development of his book, "The Innovator's Dilemma".
Harvard Business School Professors Kim Clark, Joseph Bower, Jay Light, and John McArthur are acknowledged for supporting Christensen's doctoral program.
Other mentors including Richard Rosenbloom, Howard Stevenson, Dorothy Leonard, Richard Walton, Bob Hayes, Steve Wheelwright, and Kent Bowen are thanked for their guidance and contributions.
Executives and employees from the disk drive industry, especially James Porter, are thanked for sharing their knowledge and data, crucial for his research.
Harvard Business School colleagues Rebecca Henderson, James Utterback, Robert Burgelman, David Garvin, Gary Pisano, and Marco Iansiti are acknowledged for their contributions to refining the book's ideas.
Research associates, editors, and assistants are thanked for their significant contributions.
Students are acknowledged for their valuable insights and contributions through discussions and critiques.
Christensen expresses deep gratitude to his family for their support.