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Lngllsh edagogy
oqllsb lbooetlcs ooJ lboooloqy. 5opto-seqmeotols, 5ecooJ 1etm 2012

Weak Forms of Function Words.
As weve been talking about so far, your own repertoire of lexical units can be formally classified
according to two major groups of lexical units: Content and Function words. Generally, it is the
content word which carries the most prominent aspect within a single idea, embedded within a
particular grammatical configuration. In such communicative situations, it is rather general to have
Function words receive no prominence at all, thus influencing the way such lexical units are
uttered or pronounced. Such function words are pronounced then in their contracted, or weak,
forms. Some of the weak forms can be seen in the following chart. As usual with these kinds of
exercises, youre supposed to read out the sentences out loud in order to practice your
pronunciation and fluency as well.
Function Word Type Examples
Personal pronouns She saw me.
Possessive determiners Hes my brother
Each other, one another They were hitting each other.
Articles Its an email.
Determiners some & any Do you want some? / Have you got any?
Indefinite pronouns when being
the object of verbal phrase.
I didnt see anyone
There + be, used as an
introductory phrase
Theres some cake left.
Auxiliary verbs & Modal verbs He was late.
I can hear it.
Prepositions Theyre from Spain.
Conjunctions Hes older than me.

What comes now is a series of mini-dialogues illustrating some common communicative
situations. Again, identify content and function words and practice your fluency and general
pronunciation by reading the sentences out loud as many times as necessary. I strongly
recommend you to do such activities together with another person; in that way one can produce
the sentences while the other listens attentively and then you can swop roles. Eventhough such
mini-dialogues are directed towards specific sections within class, the more you practice the more
chances you get for improving your fluency and general pronunciation.
As Underhill (1994)
1
suggested weak forms are intimately related to the velocity of our speech.
The faster your speech is, the more weak forms. And therefore, effective use of weak forms will
provide naturalness, clarity and will eventually lead the L2 learner to better listening skills and
much improved self-confidence in terms of language command. So I honestly recommend you to
incorporate weak forms into your own language repertoire if wanting to improve and take your
actual language command to even further manipulation.

1
Underhill, A. (2005). Sound Foundations: Learning and Teaching Pronunciation. Great Britain: Macmillan Education.