Today I had a lesson in school about steps and glides and I didn't understand it.
My first question what is about steps and glides. My second question is how do I know if the sentence ends with steps or glide?
Here are some examples:
She is friendly and outgoing.
The sentence ends with outgoing; is it steps or glide and how do I know if it is steps or glides?
The second example:
He is quiet and shy.
The word ends with shy is it steps or glide and how do I know if it steps or glides?
Best Answer
The usual pattern at the end of declarative and imperative sentences (but not questions) is that
If the last stressed syllable is also the last syllable of the sentence, then the fall in pitch is achieved by a "glide"—the pitch falls continuously while the vowel is being pronounced.
But if the last stressed syllable is followed by one or more unstressed or less-stressed syllables, then the vowel of the last stressed syllable is spoken with a high pitch throughout, and the pitch drops—"steps down"—on the following syllables.
In most cases, therefore, you need only look at the last stressed word. If it has only one syllable, or its primary stress is on its last syllable, you speak the final syllable with a glide. If its primary stress is not on its last syllable, you speak the last syllable with a high pitch and step the pitch down for the syllables which follow it.
In the examples below the stressed syllable is written in CAPS; the pronunciation is indicated with ↘ for a glide and ↴_ for a step.
Sometimes, however, the last word does not bear the final primary stress; the stress may move to an earlier word to signify a contrast. In this case, you step down from the stressed syllable. For instance.
And some words have different stresses with different meanings. Outgoing, for instance, has a primary stress on -GO- when it means "extroverted", but on OUT- when it means departing: