ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses broader stress-related topics, that is, what is generally referred to as sentence stress and timing. It addresses the following questions: What are utterances? How do syllable timing and stress timing differ? Which characterizes English speech? How closely does utterance stress align with word stress? What are silent beats? What patterns appear to guide North American English (NAE) speakers’ placement of stress during utterances? In order to understand the importance of utterance stress and timing in NAE, it is necessary to understand that NAE has a characteristic rhythm that distinguishes it from some other languages. Linguists have commonly distinguished between two basic types of speech rhythm, generally discussed in reference to TIMING: syllable timing and stress timing. In order to maintain regular utterance stresses that are not too close together, NAE speakers do not stress all the content words.
