This research examines the stress shift and the uncertainty of stress patterns of teen numbers uttered by thirty native speakers of Australian English. The fundamental frequency (pitch) and intensity of each syllable of teen numbers and ty numbers in five hundred and thirty-eight sentences were analyzed. The results showed that 65% of “-teen” were pronounced with a higher pitch when teen numbers were not followed by a noun in declarative sentences. Conversely, 57% of the first syllables of teen numbers were pronounced with a higher pitch when they were followed by a noun. This suggests that the stress on “-teen” tends to shift to the first syllable to avoid a stress clash, as explained by the Rhythm Rule in Australian English. Regarding intensity, the first syllables of teen numbers were pronounced more strongly in both cases: when “teen numbers are not followed by a noun in declarative sentences” and when “teen numbers are followed by a noun”. In other words, it was observed that a tendency for stress to shift from “-teen” to the first syllable without an apparent cause.

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This paper addresses the issue of the nuclear stress assignment in sentences with the structure of have + object noun + past participle.  The sentence containing this structure can be semantically ambiguous; it may be causative or experiential.  It has been widely believed that the distinction between the two interpretations can be made by the position of the nuclear stress and that have is stressed when the sentence is causative while the past participle is stressed when the sentence is experiential.  To the best of my knowledge, no previous research has discussed the alleged statement except for Kato (1983, 1989), who points out that the statement is not confirmed by evidence.  To reveal the empirical fact about the nuclear stress assignment in this structure, I conducted an experiment where nine native English speakers read aloud a pair of invented sentences slowly.  The F₀ values of have, the object noun, and the past participle were measured to judge which of the three items carried the highest F₀.  The results indicate that the object noun carried the highest F₀ in both sentences.  The paper also discusses three pedagogical implications.

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In Japanese elementary English education, homeroom teachers often take on the role of instruction, and many feel uncertain about teaching pronunciation. This research note aims to propose a teacher training program for in-service elementary school teachers, building upon a pilot study by Abe et al. (2023), which used the “Pronunciation Instruction Manual” developed by Joto and Nishio, within the framework of the ADDIE instructional design model. With an eye toward implementation in the coming year, the training is designed as a one-hour session to help teachers understand how to use the manual and to encourage ongoing engagement in pronunciation practice.

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