By Héctor Ortíz Unit 4

Moisés A. Bittner
Phonetics and Phonology
Autumn Term
 Introduction
 Weak forms are an essential feature of English pronunciation.

 Students who wish to acquire a high level of oral performance, as is the case of
future teachers of English, must be aware of their existence, since failure to
produce them will affect English rhythm quite considerably and even lead to
misunderstanding.

 Spanish-speaking learners face a number of difficulties in this respect:

 Weakening of the grammatical items which make up the weak form inventory in
non-prominent contexts does not exist in Spanish.

 English spelling does not provide learners with the information they need to make
the correct choice unless the weakened pronunciations are represented with a
contracted form, i.e. by the use of apostrophes.

e.g. I could’ve helped if you’d asked me /ai kUd v helpt if jud A:st mi/
 There is a small group of about 35 to 40 very common
structural words in English which are pronounced in
mainly two different ways—a weak form and a strong
form; some of these words have more than one weak
form.

 In general, weak forms are much more common than

strong forms; in fact, weak forms are the normal
pronunciations and for this reason students should
identify them and use them from the very early stages.
 A weak form usually contains a weak vowel – mainly
//, sometimes the neutralised versions /i/ and /u/ –
and, in some cases, no vowel.

e.g. come and kiss me /kVm n kIs mi/

e.g. bread and butter /bred n bVt/

 Students must learn when to use weak forms and when not
to use them. The correct choice depends mainly on three
factors, all of which are exemplified below, viz.

 (i) ACCENT: Is the weak-form word accented or

unaccented?

 (ii) STRANDING (exposure): Is the weak-form word

exposed as a result of a grammatical operation implying
movement or deletion?

 (iii) PHONETIC ENVIRONMENT: Is the weak-form word

followed by a vowel or a consonant? Does the weak-form
word beginning with /h/ occur after a pause?
 ACCENT: Is this for us or for them?
/Iz DIs fr Vs  O: f Dem/

 STRANDING: What’s it made of?

(exposure) /wQts it meId Qv/

 PHONETIC ENVIRONMENT:
To eat and to drink /tu i:t n t drINk/
He said he was coming /hi sed I wQz kVmIN/
The inventory of weak-form words
(i) ARTICLES AND ADJECTIVAL WORDS: a, an, the, some, his, her

(ii) PRONOUNS: he, him, her, us, them, there

(iii) CONJUNCTIONS: and, as, but, than, that

(iv) PREPOSITIONS: at, for, from, of, to

(v) AUXILIARY AND MODAL VERBS: am, is, are, was, were
have, has, had
do, does
shall, will
can, must, would
 References
 Ortíz, Héctor. 2008. The 37 essential weak-form words.

 Roach, Peter. 2002. A Little Encyclopaedia of Phonetics.

 Roach, Peter. 1991. English Phonetics and Phonology, a practical

course, 2nd Edition.

 http://davidbrett.uniss.it/phonology/notes%20and%20exercises
/weak%20forms%20audio/introandpreps/weak_forms.htm

 https://notendur.hi.is/peturk/KENNSLA/02/TOP/weakstrong.ht
ml