Listening and speaking

Aetiological Tale

Listen carefully as your teacher reads to you an aetiological tale titled, ‘Why frogs have no buttocks’ then answer the following questions.

Where did the frogs live?
What made the frogs eat their young ones?
Why did the frogs regret having eaten their young ones?
What do you think made the frogs lose their buttocks?

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Group discussion and application

Discuss the role of the following stylistic devices in the story:
1. the use of repetition.
2. the use of song.
Apart from attempting to explain why frogs have no buttocks, the story teaches us a lesson. Discuss the moral lesson of the story.
Retell similar tales that explain why certain animals have or do not have certain parts of the body.
What is the function of the song in the story?

Apart from attempting to explain strange natural characteristics, behaviour or appearance, aetiological tales convey a moral lesson. Like other oral narratives, songs may be used in aetiological tales to:

Emphasise the message that the narrator wants the audience to grasp.
Convey emotions.
Invite the audience to participate in the story-telling session.

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Stress in sentences

In Form Two, we learnt that when a word in English has two or more syllables:

The syllable that is said with the greatest force is said to have primary stress, such as, ‘-men-’ in ‘tremendous’.
The syllable that is said with less force than the primary stress is said to have secondary stress, for example, ‘tre-’ in ‘tremendous’.
The syllable that is said with very little force, and spoken very softly is said to have weak stress such as ‘-dous’ in ‘tremendous’.

Stress is as important in words as it is in sentences. In a regular English sentence, the words that are usually stressed are the ones that are essential for conveying the message. These are the content words. They include nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives. Other words, also called form words, which contribute to correctness in the grammar of a sentence are not stressed. These include conjunctions, articles (a, an, the), interjections and auxiliaries.

Note that not all content words in a sentence are given equal emphasis; usually only the last content word is stressed. Example, in the sentence. ‘Frogs lived in water’ only the word ‘water’ is stressed.

The same applies to questions – the last content word is stressed. Example: Did frogs live in water?

Exercise 1

Read the following sentences, putting more emphasis on the last word.

The land was struck by great poverty.
There was neither water nor food.
Did the frog croak painfully?
Had all the young frogs been eaten?
The frogs felt very sad.

Note that stress does not always come at the end of the sentence.

They cancelled the meeting.
The word ‘cancelled’ brings out the main idea of the sentence and it is stressed even though it comes in the middle of a sentence.
I am driving to work tomorrow.
The word ‘driving’ is stressed to emphasise the fact that the act of driving is the only means the speaker will use to go to work.
They carried them.
This sentence ends with the pronoun ‘them’. The word emphasised is the content word ‘carried’ to show the action that took place.
This is the house they lived in.
This sentence ends with the preposition ‘in’ but the word emphasised is the content word ‘lived’.
Stop shouting at me.
This sentence ends with the pronoun ‘me’ but the word emphasised in the sentence is the content word (verb/noun) ‘shouting’.

When a statement ends with a pronoun or preposition or both, the content word before it is the one that is stressed. This is exemplifed in examples 3, 4 and 5 above.

Exercise 2

Read the following sentences emphasising the underlined words.

The bully slapped her.
Is that the lady you stay with?
I was annoyed with him.
He always quarrelled with her.
The students love her.

Emphatic stress

In some cases, form words can be stressed to bring out certain meanings or to show strong feelings about something.

Study the following sentences:

This must be my shirt. I lost it.
No it’s not yours, it’s mine. The pronouns ‘yours’ and ‘mine’ are emphasised to correct error in judgement or denial.
Tom did cry.
The auxiliary verb ‘did’ is emphasised to answer someone who doubted whether Tom cried or not.
It wasn’t me.
The auxiliary verb ‘wasn’t’ is emphasised to dispute an allegation made against a person.
Do stop giggling.
The auxiliary verb ‘do’ is emphasised to bring out disgust, anger or annoyance.
I kept it on the desk.
The preposition ‘on’ is emphasised to show the exact location.