Rules for Sentence & Word Stress in English

**muhamedr** · 05-02-2010, 11:13 AM

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
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
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
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.

Sentence Stress Rules >

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

The basic rules of sentence stress are:

content words are stressed
structure words are unstressed
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).