Stress and Rhythm
Some languages, such as English, are said to be stress-timed languages; that is, stressed syllables appear at a roughly constant rate, and non-stressed syllables are shortened to accommodate this. This contrasts with languages that have syllable timing (e.g. Spanish) or mora timing (e.g. Japanese), where syllables or moras are spoken at a roughly constant rate regardless of stress. For details, see Isochrony.
Read more about this topic: Stress (linguistics)
Famous quotes containing the words stress and, stress and/or rhythm:
“While ... we cannot and must not hide our concern for grave world dangers, and while, at the same time, we cannot build walls around ourselves and hide our heads in the sand, we must go forward with all our strength to stress and to strive for international peace. In this effort America must and will protect herself.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“In the stress of modern life, how little room is left for that most comfortable vanity that whispers in our ears that failures are not faults! Now we are taught from infancy that we must rise or fall upon our own merits; that vigilance wins success, and incapacity means ruin.”
—Agnes Repplier (1858–1950)
“There is a rhythm to the ending of a marriage just like the rhythm of a courtship—only backward. You try to start again but get into blaming over and over. Finally you are both worn out, exhausted, hopeless. Then lawyers are called in to pick clean the corpses. The death has occurred much earlier.”
—Erica Jong (b. 1942)