Why is this?

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Believer

#210373 Tue, 28 Mar 06 02:11 PM

I saw this explanation from the Collins/Cobuild dictionary. P/S tell me why the underlined word get only stressed the letters "NA," not the whole word "banana."

Sentence stress is an accent on certain words w/in a sentence. Function words, such as articles, prepositions, conjunctions, and auxiliary verbs are not stressed.

ex) I WANT a baNAna

The CAR is MOVING.

Believer

Joined on Mon, Jan 2 2006

Contributing Member (1,969)

Accents, Verbs, Articles, Prepositions, Auxiliaries

Mister Micawber

#210612 Wed, 29 Mar 06 08:06 AM

Sentence stress falls on the stressed syllable of certain content words in a sentence, not on the whole word (unless the word is monosyllabic).

I want a baNAna. Sentence stress on NA
The car is MOving. Sentence stress on MO
I want a HAT. Sentence stress on HAT.

Mister Micawber

Joined on Wed, Aug 4 2004

Yokohama

Veteran Member (21,109)

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.'

Believer

#210622 Wed, 29 Mar 06 09:10 AM

Thank you. Don't you consider the words "want", "car" and "is" content words and thus, their certain syllables also need be stressed? I thought the content words are those that are essential in conveying their intended meaning and all the words in parenthesis seem to be necessary for the sentences to convey any kinds of meaning.

I want a baNAna.

The car is MOving.

I want a HAT.

Believer

Mister Micawber

#210661 Wed, 29 Mar 06 12:15 PM

I don't think you understand the concept of sentence stress yet, Believer. Words, either function words or content words, do not need to be stressed; they may be stressed, depending on what the speaker wishes to communicate. Below, I embolden the sentence stress:

I want a banana (= it's not my sister that wants one!)
I want A banana (= don't give me three or four of them!)
I want a baNAna (= not a kumquat!)

As with individual words, if the sentence us longer, there are liable to appear secondary stresses in addition to the primary stress:

When I go to theZOO, I always seem to want a baNAna. (Primary stress is bold, secondary stress is underlined).

Mister Micawber

Believer

#211033 Thu, 30 Mar 06 01:48 PM

Thank you.

How do you sound the primary stress in comparison to the secondary stress - louder, longer and/or stronger? In another post, I think you said that the primary stress is the strongest stress and the secondary stress is the not-so-strong stress. Can you explain those differences more clearly?

Believer