Pt 2

• SENTENCE STRESS

  -occurs when we say certain words more loudly and with more emphasis than others.
• Sentence Stress is the music of spoken English.
• Sentence Stress is what gives English its rhythm or “beat”.
• Sentence Stress is accent on certain words within a sentence.
• Content words – are the key words of a sentence. They are the important words that carry the meaning or sense-the real content.
• 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 – its structure.
• if you remove the structure words from a sentence, you 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.
• Content words are stressed.
• Structure words are unstressed.
• The time between stressed words is always the same.
• CONTENT WORDS

  1. Nouns

  2. Verbs

  3. Adjectives

  4. Adverbs

  5. Negative words

  6. Modals

  7. Yes, no and auxiliary verbs in short answers 8.Quantifiers.

  9. Wh-question words

  Note: what is often unstressed when speaking quickly because it is common.
• STRUCTURE WORDS

  1. Pronouns

  2. Prepositions

  3. Articles

  4. Conjunctions

  5. Auxiliary verbs
• But sometimes we can stress a word that would normally be a structure word. For example:

  -They’ve been to Mongolia, haven’t they?

  -No, THEY haven’t, but WE have.
• Words with Silent Letters

  -a silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the word’s pronunciation.
• Why Silent Letters Exist?

  1. When writing, it can help differentiate homophones.
• The word came from another language.