English Pronunciation Tip of the Day
Tip 80
Category: Weak
forms
Author: JAM
Stranding again
Tip 73 introduced the concept of stranding and we saw there some examples of stranded modal and auxiliary verbs used in the strong form even though they were unstressed. Prepositions behave in the same way. Look at the two sentences below:
1. They all laughed at his jokes. /DeI "O:l "lA:ft @t Iz "dZ@Uks/
2. What are you laughing at? /"wQt @ ju "lA:fIN {t/
The word at is unstressed in both sentences. In sentence 1 it is weak, but in sentence 2 it is stranded and therefore must be strong.
Here are a few more examples of stranded prepositions:
I don't know where he comes from. /frQm/
Who were you talking to /tu:/ on the telephone?
He's the chap I was thinking of. /Qv/
Notice that it is not only at the ended of a sentence that a preposition can be stranded.