Lecture 8- List of Weak & Strong Forms

Phonetics_______2nd Year LMD

Teacher: Mr. Aounali W

LECTURE 8: STRONG AND WEAK FORMS IN SENTENCE STRESS Many grammatical words in English have two forms when it comes to pronunciation, called ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ forms. The weak forms show reduction of vowels /ɪ/, /ʊ/ towards /ə/ in most cases. These words belong to the grammatical category, also called function words. For instance: auxiliary verbs, modals, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, possessive adjectives and articles.

Determiners / Quantifiers

Orthography A / An The Some

Pronouns / Possessive adjectives

Prepositions / Particles

Orthography He / His / Him She / Her Them We / Us You / your Orthography As At For From Of To / Into Than There Just

Conjunctions

Orthography And But That

Auxiliaries / Modals

Orthography Am / Are Be / Been Can / Could Do / Does Have/ Has /Had Must Shall / Should Was / Were

Strong form Weak form /eɪ/ ; /æn/ /ði/ /sʌm/

/ə/ ; /ən/ /ðə/ , /ði/ /səm/ /sm/

Strong form /hiː/; /hɪz/; /hɪm/ /ʃiː/ ; /hɜː/ /ðem/ /wiː/ ; /ʌs/ /juː/ ; /jɔː/

Weak form /hi/, /ɪ/ ; /ɪz/ ; /ɪm/ /ʃi/ ; /hə/, /ə/ /ðəm/ /əm/ /wi/ ; /əs/ /jə/ , /jʊ/ ; /jə/

Strong form /æz/ /æt/ /fɔː/ /frɒm/ /ɒv/ /tuː/ ; /ɪntuː/ /ðæn/ /ðeə/ 

Weak form /əz/ /ət/ /fə/ /frəm/ /əv/ /tə/ /tʊ/;/ɪntə/,/ɪntʊ/ /ðən/, /ðn/ /ðə/ 

Strong form /ænd/ /bʌt/ /ðæt/

Weak form /ənd/ /ən/ /nd/, /n/ /bət/ /ðət/

Strong form

Weak form

/æm/ ; /ɑː/ /biː/ ; /biːn/ /kæn/ ; /kʊd/ /duː/ ; /dʌz/ /hæv/; /hæz/; /hæd/ /mʌst/ /ʃæl/ ; /ʃʊd/ /wɒz/ ; /wɜː/

/əm/ /m/ ; /ə/ /bi/ ; /bɪn/ /kən/ /kn/ ; /kəd/ /də/ ; /dəz/ /əv/ /v/; /əz/;/əd/ /məst/ , /məs/ /ʃəl/ ; /ʃəd/ /wəz/ ; /wə/

Remark: The function words may be pronounced as strong form when they occur at the end of the sentence or it’s emphasized in the sentence.