syllable sounds that become unstressed in connected speech and are often then pronounced as a schwa.

a feature of connected speech when a sound changes to another sound because of a neighbouring sound e.g. in ten boys /n/ followed by /b/ changes to /m/ as in /tembɔɪz/

a noun that is created by adding -ing to the verb-stem (e.g. Parking is not permitted)

a term is used in phonology to refer to the boundary between sounds where the speaker may pause slightly to show where the boundary is; this explains the difference between the pronunciation of that stuff and that's tough

verbs that have little meaning alone but that can be joined together with many other words, so generating a wide variety of new meanings. eg. the get in get older

a feature of connected speech. When two words are said together, an extra sound is sometimes placed between them in order to make them easier to say. Example: 'I am not happy' becomes "I yam not happy" with an intrusive /j/ sound

the grammatical term that refers to the part of the sentence that follows certain verbs and gives information about the subject of the sentence, e.g. He's a doctor. I feel exhausted.

A verb which, unlike the infinitive, is marked for tense, person, number e.g. plays, worked.

verbs which are used to support another verb in a sentence and have a grammatical function such as showing tense, aspect, person, voice and mood e.g. be, do, have, will, may, can

A verb which does not take an object.

a term used to describe a verb which links the subject and the complement e.g. That looks delicious, He became a teacher

Omission of a sound or sounds in connected speech, often because it follows other similar sounds, commonly t + d Example: 'I don't know' /I duno/ or Baked beans /beɪkˈbiːnz/

the way a speaker highlights certain words in each sentence. It helps the listener focus on important parts and understand the speaker's meaning. Example: He's had a HEART ATTACK