Rhythmic group as the basic unit of rhythm

RHYTHM

Speech rhythm. Definition. Typology

The description of English intonation is incomplete without some reference to speech rhythm. Rhythm is viewed as a kind of framework of speech organization.

In a broad sense rhythm is understood as periodicity in time and space. The notion of rhythm implies that something occurs at regular intervals of time. It can be observed in the succession of seasons, heart beating, breathing, in music, dancing and other forms of art.

Speech rhythm is traditionally defined as a regular occurrence of stressed syllables in a speech continuum. Speech rhythm is also described in terms of acceleration and slowing down, of relaxation and intensification, length and brevity, similar and dissimilar elements. The type of rhythm depends on the language. Languages are divided into two groups: syllable-timed, like French, Spanish, Italian, Greek and others, and stress-timed, such as English, German, Dutch, Russian and other languages.

In syllable-timed languages an approximately equal amount of time is given to each syllable, regardless of it being stressed or unstressed. In these languages there is practically no reduction of unstressed vowels.

In stress-timed languages stressed syllables tend to occur at relatively equal intervals of time, According to the stress-timed theory time intervals between stressed syllables are approximately the same irrespective of the number of unstressed syllables between them, which is generally described as a tendency to isochrony. In such languages rhythm is based on a larger unit than syllable. This rhythmic unit is called the foot or the rhythmic group. The stressed syllables in the rhythmic group form peaks of prominence.

Rhythm in Different Languages

languages	rhythm
syllable-timed	equal amount of time is given to each syllable, stressed or unstressed
stress-timed	stressed syllables occur at equal intervals of time and form peaks of prominence in rhythmic groups

Rhythmic group as the basic unit of rhythm

The basic unit of rhythm is the rhythmic group (the foot, the phonetic word), which can be defined as a speech segment containing a stressed syllable and unstressed syllables attached to it. The stressed syllable is the nucleus of the rhythmic group. The unstressed syllables preceding the stressed syllable with which they are grouped are called proclitics, those following the stressed syllable are called enclitics.

There are two alternative views among phoneticians concerning the grouping of stressed and unstressed syllables. According to the first point of view the grouping is based on the semantic principle: the unstressed syllables tend to be drawn either to the stressed syllable of the same word or to the lexical unit with which they are semantically connected, e.g.

They decided| to go| to the country| for the weekend.

According to the other point of view the unstressed syllables tend to join the preceding stressed syllable. This theory is called enclitic. According to the enclitic principle the same phrase will be divided into rhythmic groups in the following way:

They decided to| go to the| country for the| weekend.

The enclitic tendency is considered to be more typical of English, though experimental data show that the type of division into rhythmic groups depends on the tempo and style of speech. The enclitic tendency is observed in rapid colloquial speech, while in careful slow speech the semantic tendency prevails.

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