Rhythm and Prosody
Introduction
Prosody is the study of the rhythm of speech. Different languages have different ways of creating rhythm. In these articles, we will be looking at Anglophone (English) examples, but you may find that rhythm works differently in your language.
- It's important to consider how your language works, since much of the vocabulary we still use in prosody was developed millennia ago, and is applicable primarily to the Greek language. For an overview of classical Greek ideas of prosody, click here.
- In these articles, please note that much of the vocabulary (such as "flex syllables," "syllabic families," "syllabic vs. accentual rhythms," etc.) has been developed by Emily C. A. Snyder to help define how Anglophone Prosody functions. Anything that has been developed by Emily C. A. Snyder will be marked with an asterisk *
Peculiarities of English
English is an accentual-syllabic language. What this means is that our rhythm is created in two ways: through syllables (the different units of a word) and accent (whether those units are stressed or unstressed).
However, English also has flex syllables* which are typically monosyllabic words that may or may not be emphasized, depending on the speaker's intonation, and the rhythm of the words surrounding it. Flex syllables will be covered in separate articles.
However, English also has flex syllables* which are typically monosyllabic words that may or may not be emphasized, depending on the speaker's intonation, and the rhythm of the words surrounding it. Flex syllables will be covered in separate articles.
Vocabulary
- Prosody: The study of the rhythm of speech. We break down prosody by metric feet.
- Metric Foot: A single unit of one (1) beat and the rhythms over it.
- Rhythm: Is the interplay of syllables and accents over a beat.
- Syllabic Rhythm*: The number of syllables on a foot.
- Accentual Rhythm*: The accents attributed to each syllable in a foot. Accentual rhythm will be covered in the next article.
Syllabic Rhythm*
In this article, we're going to look at syllabic rhythm. A syllable is a single unit of a word. So the word "music" has two syllables: "mu - sic." Some helpful terminology:
- Monosyllable: A word with only one (1) syllable. Example: "Yes."
- Disyllable: A word with two (2) syllables. Example: "Mu-sic."
- Trisyllable: A word with three (3) syllables. Example: "Wan-der-ing."
- Tetrasyllable: A word with four (4) syllables. Example: "In-for-ma-tion."
- Pentasyllable: A word with five (5) syllables. Example: "Pen-ta-syl-la-ble"...and so on
A monosyllabic word contains only one (1) syllable.
A multisyllabic word contains more than one syllable.
How many syllables can be on a foot?
A metric foot can have any number of syllables over it. It's like music: so long as you go really fast (or hit beats really slow) you can cram a lot of syllables per beat.
For example, at the 3:10 marker of Eminem's song, "Godzilla" off his 2020 album, Music to be Murdered By, Eminem was able to load 224 words (300 syllables) into a mere 31 seconds. This section averages out to about 10.65 syllables (or 7.23 words) per second. (Source: Men's Health)
The first line of that third verse begins with: "Fill 'em with the venom, and eliminate 'em." The first beat can be felt on "fill." The next beat isn't felt until "lim" of "e-lim-in-ate."
That means that in the first foot of Eminem's verse, there are eight syllables: "Fill 'em with the ven-om and e-"
For example, at the 3:10 marker of Eminem's song, "Godzilla" off his 2020 album, Music to be Murdered By, Eminem was able to load 224 words (300 syllables) into a mere 31 seconds. This section averages out to about 10.65 syllables (or 7.23 words) per second. (Source: Men's Health)
The first line of that third verse begins with: "Fill 'em with the venom, and eliminate 'em." The first beat can be felt on "fill." The next beat isn't felt until "lim" of "e-lim-in-ate."
That means that in the first foot of Eminem's verse, there are eight syllables: "Fill 'em with the ven-om and e-"
Putting it together
When scanning (studying) a piece of meter*, we always begin with the metric feet. In "Godzilla," Eminem uses four (4) strong beats per measure. For our purposes we would then say:
- Because there are four (4) strong beats
- That means that the line has four (4) feet
- So we would call it tetrameter
Then we look at the syllabic rhythm.*
- Just looking at prosody of the first metric foot, we see eight (VIII) syllables
- That means that we can say the first foot, and possibly the whole verse, uses octosyllabic rhythm
Annotating Meter*
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To annotate metric feet/beat and syllabic rhythm:
VIII / 4
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Next up!
Syllabic rhythm is only one way that English uses rhythm. Let's take a look next at Accentual Rhythm.
