Sentence Stress

 Hello Scholars,

Given below is a gist of what I got from different reliable sources. Read it carefully and let's have the discussion next week. I look forward to see your comments on each post. All the best for the rest of the week!

Esala

Sentence Stress in English

Sentence stress is the music of spoken English. Like word stress, sentence stress can help you to understand spoken English, especially when spoken fast.
Sentence stress is what gives English its rhythm or "beat". You remember that word stress is accent on one syllable within a word. Sentence stress is accent on certain words within a sentence.
Most sentences have two types of word:

• content words
• structure words

Content words are the key words of a sentence. They are the important words that carry the meaning or sense.
Structure words are not very important words. They are small, simple words that make the sentence correct grammatically. They give the sentence its correct form or "structure".
If you remove the structure words from a sentence, you will probably still understand the sentence.
If you remove the content words from a sentence, you will not understand the sentence. The sentence has no sense or meaning.
Imagine that you receive this telegram message:

Will	you	SELL	my	CAR	because	I've	GONE	to	FRANCE
Click here to hear

This sentence is not complete. It is not a "grammatically correct" sentence. But you probably understand it. These 4 words communicate very well. Somebody wants you to sell their car for them because they have gone to France. We can add a few words:

Will	you	SELL	my	CAR	because	I've	GONE	to	FRANCE
Click here to hear

The new words do not really add any more information. But they make the message more correct grammatically. We can add even more words to make one complete, grammatically correct sentence. But the information is basically the same:

Content Words
Will	you	SELL	my	CAR	because	I've	GONE	to	FRANCE.
Structure Words
Click here to hear

In our sentence, the 4 key words (sell, car, gone, France) are accentuated or stressed.
Why is this important for pronunciation? It is important because it adds "music" to the language. It is the rhythm of the English language. It changes the speed at which we speak (and listen to) the language. The time between each stressed word is the same.
In our sentence, there is 1 syllable between SELL and CAR and 3 syllables between CAR and GONE. But the time (t) between SELL and CAR and between CAR and GONE is the same. We maintain a constant beat on the stressed words. To do this, we say "my" more slowly, and "because I've" more quickly. We change the speed of the small structure words so that the rhythm of the key content words stays the same.

syllables
2			1		3			1
Will	you	SELL	my	CAR	because	I've	GONE	to	FRANCE.
t1		beat	t1	beat	t1		beat	t1	beat

Sentence Stress Rules >

See also: Word Stress

I am a proFESsional phoTOgrapher whose MAIN INterest is to TAKE SPEcial, BLACK and WHITE PHOtographs that exHIBit ABstract MEANings in their photoGRAPHic STRUCture.

Sentence stress
In spoken English, we use sentence stress to show our listeners which parts of our sentences are the most important (the parts that carry the most meaning). We usually stress content words, for example, main verbs, nouns and adjectives rather than articles or auxiliary verbs. We stress words by saying them slightly louder and more slowly than the other words in the sentence. Listen Helen: Have you seen the new film with Tom Cruise? The bold words (a main verb, an adjective and two nouns) are the ones Helen stresses.

Sentence stress examples:

Listen What did he say to you in the garden? Listen He's had a heart attack. Listen How long are you going for?

Shifting stress If we want to contrast or show disagreement with what someone else has said, we use shifting stress. We do this by changing the usual patterns of sentence stress. So in this next example, John knows the conversation is about films and Tom Cruise so he doesn't have to stress those items. Instead he stresses the new or contrasting information: Listen Helen: Have you seen that new film with Tom Cruise? John: No, but I saw the last one he was in. It was terrible! Here are some more examples from The Flatmates:

Shifting stress examples:

Listen Not your dad, my dad. Listen It's a one-way ticket I've booked. Listen I'm going back to Poland for good.

Vocabulary:

ommitment (n): being ready to give a lot of your time, attention or love to something or someone because you believe in the person or thing is right or important a one-way ticket: a ticket you use to go somewhere but which you can't use to come back for good: for ever

Rules for Sentence Stress in English

The basic rules of sentence stress are:

1. content words are stressed
2. structure words are unstressed
3. the time between stressed words is always the same

The following tables can help you decide which words are content words and which words are structure words:

Content words - stressed

Words carrying the meaning	Example
main verbs	SELL, GIVE, EMPLOY
nouns	CAR, MUSIC, MARY
adjectives	RED, BIG, INTERESTING
adverbs	QUICKLY, LOUDLY, NEVER
negative auxiliaries	DON'T, AREN'T, CAN'T

Structure words - unstressed

Words for correct grammar	Example
pronouns	he, we, they
prepositions	on, at, into
articles	a, an, the
conjunctions	and, but, because
auxiliary verbs	do, be, have, can, must

Exceptions

The above rules are for for what is called "neutral" or normal stress. But sometimes we can stress a word that would normally be only a structure word, for example to correct information. Look at the following dialogue:
"They've been to Mongolia, haven't they?"
"No, THEY haven't, but WE have.
Note also that when "be" is used as a main verb, it is usually unstressed (even though in this case it is a content word).