從母音弱化和語音省略現象看英語的節律特徵

Understanding the Rhythm of English Through Vowel Reduction and Sound Deletion

英語節律的典型特徵表現在重音趨向於以相同的時間間隔出現，保持這一趨向的手段之一是適時弱化重音之間的非重音節。依據可觀察到的相關語言事實，本文說明瞭英語弱化非重音節的兩個重要途徑是母音弱化和語音省略，它們的作用維護了英語的節律特徵。本文認為有必要讓學生瞭解這一點，以幫助他們更好地掌握英語的節律運作。

English has been described as a stress-timed language which means that inEnglish the stressed syllables tend to occur at equal intervals of time, with theunstressed syllables squeezed in between. Based on the observation of relevantlinguistic data, the present paper indicates that vowel reduction and sounddeletion are two important contributors to the compression of unstressed syllablesin maintaining a smooth rhythmic flow of speech in English and by so doingdraws attention to the importance of helping our students to acquire a bettercommand of English rhythmic mechanism through such an understanding.