When they do, something happens to relieve the clash. Sometimes the stress pattern changes. For instance, thirteen has stress on the second syllable, but thirteen men is pronounced with stress on the first syllable of thirteen . Other times, one of the stresses is elevated, or a slight pause is introduced between the two stresses. The next level of organization involves the concept of the rhythmic foot .
Feet also tend to alternate between weak and strong elements.
All other feet are weak. Prefer to put two syllables together to make a foot if they belong to the same word. Prefer to put two syllables together to make a foot if the first syllable is stronger than the second. A foot is strong if it contains a strong stress, weak otherwise. The next layer of rhythmic organization is the prosodic word, typically two rhythmic feet, one weak, one strong.