FUNCTION WORDS: WEAK FORMS AND STRONG FORMS

Function words like me, you, at, to, as, than are words that do not have a lexical meaning. They generally have two (and sometimes three) pronunciations: a weak form and a strong form.

On the other hand, content words like: cat, phone, sentimental, fast only jave one pronunciation. Function words are normally monosyllabic and in connected speech they do not normally receive the main stress in the utterance.

When weak forms are NOT used:

1- Weak forms areno t used for “function” words only in exceptional circumstances. 

2- When a function word is stressed or cited.

3- When a function word is at the end of a sentence or phrase.

4- Very often, if there are two or or more function words at the end of a sentence, especially a preposition followed by a pronoun, one (usually the first one) will be in its strong form.

5- When the word is used as a “full” meaningful “lexical” form.