Specific features of the English sentence stress

Though we know that usually notional words are stressed in the sentence and form (functional) words are unstressed it is necessary to point out that any word in a sentence may have logical stress. A word which is made prominent by logical stress may stand at the beginning; at the end or in the middle of a sense-group but it is usually the last stressed word in it. Sentence stress on words following logical stress either disappears or becomes weak.

Besides functional words may be stressed in some special cases:

I. Auxiliary, modal and link verbs are stressed in the following positions:

1. At the beginning of the sentence in general and alternative questions.

E.g. Can you come? Did you meet him?

2. When they stand for a notional verb in short answers for general questions. E.g. Yes, I am. Yes I have.

3. In contracted negative forms. E. g. He didn’t do it.

4. to be is stressed when final and preceded by the object which is unstressed. E. g. I want him to be here.

5. Auxiliary verb to do is stressed in emphatic sentences. E.g. I do like it!

II. Prepositions are stressed when they consist of two or more syllables and are followed by an unstressed personal pronoun. E.g. The dog ran after him.

III. Conjunctions are stressed at the beginning of a sentence when followed by an unstressed word.

E. g. When he had gone | she went home too.

If he drives | he may be here at any moment.

IV. When a personal pronoun is connected by the conjunction ‘and’ with a noun they are both stressed. E. g. My mother and I.

V. ‘Have to’ is stressed in the meaning of ‘must’. E.g. He has to go.

The general rules for sentence stress are sometimes not observed: a word that should be stressed according to these rules may be left unstressed. In most cases it is rhythm that is responsible for the omission of stress.

Compounds are influenced in the following way:

1. When preceded by a stressed syllable they are stressed on the second element. E.g They are all first-class. It is too old-fashioned.

2. When used as attributes before nouns stressed on the first syllable, the stress falls on the first element of the compound. E.g. She is a good-looking girl.

3. When two nouns occur together the first being used attributively, the second is not stressed. E.g film-star, telephone-book. But if the second noun is polysyllabic it must be stressed. E.g. picture gallery, detective story.

Some words belonging to the notional parts of speech are not stressed in certain cases:

1. When a word is repeated in a sense-group immediately following, the repetition is generally unstressed.

E.g. - How many books have you got?

- Two books.

2. Word-substitutes like ‘one’ are usually unstressed.

E.g. I don’t like this dress. Show me that red one.

3. When the word ‘most’ does not express comparison, but a high degree of quality and is equivalent to ‘very’, ‘extremely’ it is not stressed.

E.g. This is a most beautiful picture.

4. The pronoun ‘each’ in ‘each other’ is always unstressed.

E.g. They loved each other.

5. The adverb ‘so’ in ‘ do so’, ‘think so’ is not stressed.

6. The conjunctions ‘as’ in the constructions of the type ‘as well as’ is not stressed.

7. The word ‘street’ in the names of streets is never stressed. E.g. Oxford street.

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