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This study attempts to investigate rhythmic patterns and structures in function word sequences of English. In the phonetic experiment, we examined five different lengths and three different types of sequences varying with the neighboring word construction. The intervals between two pitch accents in the string of function words were measured in terms of the number of syllables to see the extent to which a rhythmic beat stretches in English. In addition, a priority ordering of pitch accent assignment among function words was explored and compared with the one suggested by Giegerich (1968). Results show that the maximum number of unstressed syllables was varied depending on the length and the types of function word sequences, one to seven, but that the maximum number of lapsed words as opposed to syllables was consistently three. As prosodic prominence is manifested as a pitch accent at the level of utterance in English, it is contented that unaccented words as opposed to unstressed syllable should be counted as the weak counterpart within a rhythmic unit. Moreover, it is suggested that this rhythmic unit construing in the postlexical level should be called ‘accentual foot,’ following Lee & Kang (2009) and that it should be distinctive from ‘foot’ at the lexical level. Similar to the lexical foot that a stressed syllable can be followed by maximally two unstressed ones, the accentual foot is generally composed of one accented word followed by maximally three accented words. The ordering of accented function words is, in general, consistent with that of Giegerich (1968) in that modal verbs are most likely to be accented, and that auxiliaries are the least. What should be noticed in the ordering results was that phrase final pronouns were rarely accented and should deserve to be considered as a separate category because they cause a change in the whole rhythmic pattern of a sentence.
