[susan53]

The questions :

1. There are lots of examples where the preceding word is not stressed - and it makes no difference. For example They were looking at her /him. "at" is not stressed but the pronunciation would still be /ætə/ ætɪm/

2. See the transcription above. English always tends to interpose a consonant between two vowels. So if the /h/ is elided in eg know her an "intrusive consonant is added - in this case /w/. This is called liaison. /h/ is elided simply because it is very unstable in many accents. Phonetic context is irrelevant. If I use my best London accent for example He has a house in Hampstead becomes : /i:jæz ən aʊs ɪn æmpstɪd/

3. The /ʊ/ might move towards the schwa, but is unlikely to go all the way. See the transcription above.

4. Remember these aren't phonetic transcriptions but phonemic transcriptions. And what do you mean - word stress or sentence stress? The only word with both primary and secondary stress in your example was /'enɪˌðɪŋ/. Sentence stress is impossible to predict without a context.

5. What do you mean by "thought groups"? Tone groups perhaps?? Again, this is impossible to say without a context. It might all be one tone group //I 'told you to 'give her the 'book//, or more than one - eg :

You remember you told 'David to give her the book?
//What? // I told you // to give her the book //

6) Changes that occur in connected speech are potential - never definite. eg It must have been him could be pronounced in any of the following ways. It depends entirely on the speaker:
/ɪt mʌst həv bi:n hɪm/
/ɪt mʌst əv bɪn hɪm/
/ɪp mʌst ə bɪn ɪm/

7. See the transcription in my last post.

8. vehicle /vehicular : as I said in my last post, the "h" is silent, not elided - in British English at least. See the transcriptions of both words in the last post.