 One of the most characteristic features of English phonology is the weakening of vowels in unstressed syllables. Take these words. In isolation each word is stressed and the result is there, were, rather, a, lot, of, them. In connected speech however, stress is likely to fall on lot, but all remaining words are unstressed and the result is there were rather a lot of them. The vowels in there, were, a, and of are now weakened to the central vowel schwa or they are totally deleted as in them. In present-day English this weakening process affects about four dozen monosyllabic function words which occur very frequently more than one word in five in conversational English. These words have a strong form in stressed position with a full vowel and a weak form in unstressed position with a weakened vowel or a syllabic consonant. This example exhibits four weak forms and nicely shows the difference between strong and weak. Why was there nobody there to meet them? The adverb there occurs twice as a strong form in stressed position and weakened in unstressed position. Like other connected speech effects, weakening occurs as a consequence of the rhythmic organization of spoken English as a stress-timed language.