A Workbook to Communicative Grammar of English Read Free Page A

word-classes
(ii)
accented syllables of words of more than one syllable of major word-classes.
Unstressed syllables:
 (i)
one-syllable words belonging to one of the minor word-classes
(ii)
unaccented syllables of words of more than one syllable.
    In most contexts, prepositional adverbs are normally stressed while one-syllable prepositions are usually unstressed.
    Task one *
    Put stress marks in front of stressed syllables in the following sentences.
    1. The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
    2. The tourist forgot to buy a ticket at the counter.
    3. Janet is throwing a party for her twentieth birthday.
    4. We met in Rome, visited the sights and then flew home.
    5. John is fond of chocolate but Mary thoroughly dislikes it.
    6. I was admiring the landscape that unfolded in front of my eyes.
    7. This unexpected encounter with my worst enemy really upset me.
    8. Do you remember the dramatic events of September the eleventh?
    9. The United Nations decided to lift the embargo imposed on military equipment.
    10. As a true democrat, I sincerely hope that democracy will always prevail over tyranny.
    11. Slow progress has been made to persuade the warring factions to accept a compromise.
    12. The photographer had taken a dozen pictures, all of which appeared in glossy magazines.
    Task two **
    Specify whether the underlined words in the following text are stressed or not.
    Many people tend to be put off learning foreign languages as it also means taking in a lot of foreign grammar and vocabulary. Having attended two or three classes, they simply give up and put the whole thing on the backburner.
    As time goes by, however, those who dropped out are beginning to wonder how they will be getting on in the country they’ve chosen to go to for their next holiday. So they happily turn to a popular phrasebook written for the average tourist, convinced that they will easily get by under foreign skies.
    After their plane has touched down , these tourists cheerfully get through customs control, where the stock phrases come out all right. Then they set off in a hired car, driving on and on … until they run out of petrol or the car breaks down , leaving them stranded on a lonely road. The nearest farm is miles away but, fortunately, a local person happens to drive by, slow down and back up their car. Now the poor tourists are in for a nasty surprise: no more stock phrases but sentences they’ve never heard or used before. So the conversation virtually breaks down and all of a sudden the tourists remember their language classes, making a silent vow to pick up again where they left off .
    Task three **
(a)
Arrange the underlined words in two groups depending on which word-class they belong to.
(b)
Check whether there is a match between stress and word-class.
    1.7. Nucleus and tone units
    Sections 36–37
    Some stressed syllables have greater prominence than others and form the nucleus, or focal point, of an intonation pattern.
    The basic unit of intonation is the tone unit, a stretch of speech which contains one such nucleus. A sentence contains one or more tone units, depending on its length and the degree of emphasis given to its various parts.
    Task **
    Mark any tone unit boundaries in the following sentences with vertical bars, underlining the syllables which would normally form the nucleus of the respective tone units.
    1. My only sister is married to an accountant.
    2. Would you give me the bottle opener, please.
    3. Shirley was watching a film by Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense.
    4. Hurricane Freddy swept across Indonesia last night and is now heading for Japan.
    5. Although the war has been over for years, there are still occasional clashes along the border.
    6. The new car model comes in four colours: red, dark blue, grey and white.
    7. Driving on the left-hand side is something most people get used to in no time at all.
    8. I haven’t got the faintest idea if the evidence given by Karen will prove her innocence.
    9.