Dear Students, As we know stress is the relative emphasis given to a certain syllable in a word (word stress) or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence (sentence stress).
What is a Sentence Stress?
Sentence stress is a form of fixed and stressed words in a sentence. Often this emphasis is placed on words that carry important details, although this can change drastically.
Stress is a useful way to sign important points in a sentence. It gives the listener directions to listen to the most important parts of the sentence. If stress is not exercised, or improperly applied, the listener may misinterpret the proposed meaning, or have difficulty choosing important concepts.
Sentence stress occurs when we say certain words aloud and with greater emphasis than others. In English, we emphasize content words because they are important in the meaning of a sentence.
Examples of Sentence Stress
Let us illustrate the following examples. Words or letters where words have more than one to be emphasized are highlighted.
- The children are at the park.
- We have brothers and sisters?
- Why aren’t you doing your homework?
- He bought a blue bike for his son.
- I am Australian.
- We are not familiar with this new computer program.
- The athlete ran quickly and won the competition.
- She does not know the answer.
- I don’t know the answer, either.
- We aren’t sure.
- I’ve never heard of that before, but it makes sense.
- They’ll ask the teacher for help.
- Some people prefer Macs, but many others prefer PCs.
- She is going to study tonight.
- I can read German.
- I can’t talk in French.