SENTENCE STRESS PATTERNS I. INTRODUCTION Before finding out information about sentence stress patterns, we have to what stress is. In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. And it can see that English is a stress-timed language which is spoken with rhythm. This results form strong and weak stresses that are built into both individual words and sentences. During verbal communication, suprasegmental features including stress, intonation, duration and juncture are important elements in conveying metal linguistic information such as emotion and identity of the speaker (Raphael, Borden & Harris, 2007).One of them is sentence stress which is a natural part of spoken English and it is also a difficult area to work on for learners and teachers alike. For this reason it's also an area which is often neglected, but this aspect of the language can cause problems for learners in both their speaking and perhaps more importantly listening. If you do not already know about sentence stress, you can try to learn about it. This is one of the best ways for you to understand spoken English - especially English spoken fast. II. BODY 1. The definition of sentence stress. As we see that some linguists give many opinions about sentence stress which are useful for learns study English as the second language of them. However, there are students who don’t recognize how stresses in sentence are. And as known, sentence stress is the pattern of strong and weak syllables in a sentence. 2. The role of sentence stress in English We can see that sentence stress is the rhythm of English. Like word stress, sentence stress will help you understand spoken English more easily even when people speak quickly. Moreover, it also brought to the English accent which makes English become greater and people love speaking it all over the world. In sentence, stress patterns also will help us hear the difference between similar sentences. Ex: He can talk He can’t talk 1 According to the above example, verbs with the negative “- n’t” are always stressed. This helps us to hear the difference between “can” and “can’t” in the following two sentences, because sentences have different stress patterns. 3. Types of sentence stress in English In spoken English each sentence or phrase contains:  A Focus word-the most important word  Content words-very important for meaning  Function words-not as important for meaning 3.1 Content Words and Focus Words - Stressed The most important words in English phrases and sentences are content and focus words. These are pronounced with emphasis. They also are stressed words. CONTENT words are usually; nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs, negatives and numbers. The focus word usually comes last. Look at the example sentences below and read them aloud emphasizing the capitalized and highlighted text. 1. Susan is happy with her new job. 2. She likes to eat lunch in the cafeteria. In longer sentences, there is a focus word in each phrase or thought group. 3. If you plan to become a teacher, you need to have experience with children. 3.2 Function Words - Unstressed The unstressed words in a sentence are called function words or structured words. These are important to the grammatical structure of a sentence but they don't convey much meaning. Americans pronounce them quickly with a low pitch so they can be difficult to hear. Function words are usually pronouns, articles, prepositions, conjunctions and auxiliary verbs. 2 Stressing or emphasizing words correctly in phrases and sentences will greatly improve the rhythm of your speech and make your accent less noticeable. Americans will be able to understand you much more easily! 1. John wants to be an actor, so he wants to live in Hollywood. 2. Mary made an appointment with the dentist on Monday. 3. After the movie, they went to a bar to have beer. And the following table shows some examples about content words and function words: Examples: Content Words Function Words Main Verbs go, talk, writing Pronouns I, you, he ,they Nouns student, desk Prepositions on, under, with Adjectives big, clever Articles the, a, some Adverbs quickly, loudly Conjunctions but, and, so Negative Aux. Verbs can’t, don’t, aren’t Auxiliary Verbs can, should, must Demonstratives this, that, those Verb “to be” is, was, am Question Words who, which, where Ex: I am talking to the clever students. You’re sitting on the desk, but you aren’t listening to me. He’s writing quickly, so it’s difficult for him to hear me. Notice: The above types are for what is called "neutral" or normal stress. But sometimes we can stress a word that would normally be only a structure word. Ex : "They've been to Mongolia, haven't they?" "No, they haven't, but we have. 3.3 Emphatic stress 3 Emphatic stress is a special case of sentence stress. In conversation, speakers can choose to put the stress in any place in order to emphasize words and to put stress on a word, speakers do one or more of these things: + Make it louder + Make it longer + Make it higher . And the following sentences are examples which show us one reason to move the tonic stress from its utterance final position is to assign an emphasis to a content word which is usually a modal auxiliary, an intensifier, an adverb, etc. 1. It was very boring. (unmarked) 2. It was very boring. (emphatic) 3. You mustn't talk so loudly. (unmarked) 4. You mustn’t talk so loudly. (emphatic) Some intensifying adverbs and modifiers (or their derivatives) that are emphatic by nature are: Indeed, utterly, absolute, terrific, tremendous, awfully, terribly, great, grand, really, definitely, truly, literally, extremely, surely, completely, barely, entirely, very (adverb), very (adjective), quite, too, enough, pretty, far, especially, alone, only, own, -self,etc. 3.4 Contrastive Stress In contrastive contexts, the stress pattern is quite different from the emphatic and non- emphatic stresses in that any lexical item in an utterance can receive the tonic stress provided that the contrastively stressed item can be contrastable in that universe of speech. Ex: a) Do you like this one or THAT one? b) b) I like THIS one. Many other larger contrastive contexts (dialogues) can be found or worked out, or even selected from literary works for a study of contrastive stress. Consider the following: • She played the piano yesterday. (It was her who .) • She played the piano yesterday. (She only played (not. harmed) .) • She played the piano yesterday. (It was the piano that .) • She played the piano yesterday. (It was yesterday .) 3.5 Tonic Stress An intonation unit almost always has one peak of stress, which is called 'tonic stress', or 'nucleus'. Because stress applies to syllables, the syllable that receives the tonic stress is called 'tonic syllable'. The term tonic stress is usually preferred to refer to this kind of stress in referring, proclaiming, and reporting utterances. Tonic stress is almost always found in a content word in utterance final position. Consider the following, in which the tonic syllable is underlined: • I'm going. • I'm going to London. I'm going to London for a holiday 4 3.6 New Information Stress In a response given to a wh-question, the information supplied, naturally enough, is stressed,. That is, it is pronounced with more breath force, since it is more prominent against a background given information in the question. The concept of new information is much clearer to students of English in responses to wh-questions than in declarative statements. Therefore, it is best to start with teaching the stressing of the new information supplied to questions with a question word: A: What's your NAME B: My name's GEORGE. A: Where are you FROM? B: I'm from WALES. A: Where do you LIVE? B: I live in BONN A: When does the school term END? B: It ends in MAY. A: What do you DO? B: I'm a STUdent. 4. Rules of sentence stress • One word, one stress • The stress is always on a vowel • There is normally a space between stressed syllables in a sentence. Unstressed syllables can be put in that space Ex: That was the man That could be the man • Stress can be put in some syllable of a word in a sentence. Ex: Are you coming? • The time between stressed words is always the same. We can see : 1 2 3 4 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 1 and then a 2 and then a 3 and then a 4 The four sentences take the same length of time to say and you will notice the numbers are stressed and the unstressed words in between are said much more quickly in order to keep the rhythm of the language. In other languages, which are not stress-timed the stress would fall more equally on each word and syllable. 5 5. Degrees of stress 5.1 Primary stress - It is the stronger degree of stress. - Primary stress gives the final stressed syllable. - Primary stress is very important in compound words 5.2 Secondary stress - Secondary stress is the weaker of two degrees of stress in the pronunciation of a word. - Secondary stress gives the other lexically stressed syllables in a word. - Secondary stress is important primarily in long words with several syllables 5.3 Tertiary stress It includes the fully unstressed vowels. An unstressed vowel is the vowel sound that forms the syllable peak of a syllable that has no lexical stress. 5.4 Quaternary stress It includes the reduced vowels. Vowel reduction is the term in phonetics that refers to various changes in the acoustic quality of vowels, which are related to changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word which are perceived as "weakening”. III. CONCLUSION 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. Word stress is invariable, while sentence stress is variable. So sentence stress is golden key for speaking and understanding English which English learners should have; especially, there are Vietnamese students. 6 CONTENT I. Introduction……………………………………………………………. 1 II. Body………………………………………………………………………1 1. The definition of sentence stress……………………………………1 2. The role of sentence stress in English………………………………1 3. Types of sentence stress in English…………………………………2 3.1. Content Words and Focus Words – Stressed………………………………… 2 3.2. Function Words – Unstressed…………………………………………………….2 3.3. Emphatic stress…………………………………………………………………….4 3.4. Contrastive Stress………………………………………………………………….4 3.5. Tonic Stress……………………………………………………………………… 5 3.6.New Information Stress………………………………………………………5 4. Rules of sentence stress …………………………………………….6 5. Degrees of stress…………………………………………………… 6 5.1. Primary stress…………………………………………………………………… 6 5.2. Secondary stress………………………………………………………………… 7 5.3. Tertiary stress…………………………………………………………………….7 7 5.4. Quaternary stress………………………………………………………………….7 III. Conclusion………………………………………………………….7 8 . SENTENCE STRESS PATTERNS I. INTRODUCTION Before finding out information about sentence stress patterns, we have to what stress is. In linguistics, stress. recognize how stresses in sentence are. And as known, sentence stress is the pattern of strong and weak syllables in a sentence. 2. The role of sentence stress