Thursday, April 24, 2008

Sentence Stress

Welcome to my daily rotating five !

Today I've decided to discover what is the "sentence stress" !
Why a such rotating five ? Because 3 months ago, I haven't any idea about what was this thing... but no matter, there's still time to learn !

www.englishclub.com is a website explaining how to get this sentence stress, I sum up what's interesting :
  1. Most sentences have two types of word:
    • content words : They are the key words of a sentence that carry the meaning.
      • 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 : they are not very important words. They are small, simple words that make the sentence correct grammatically.
      • pronouns : he, we, they
      • prepositions : on, at, into
      • articles : a, an, the
      • conjunctions : and, but, because
      • auxiliary verbs : do, be, have, can, must

  2. The time between each stressed word is the same.
Example :
I am a proFESsional phoTOgrapher whose MAIN INterest is to TAKE SPEcial, BLACK and WHITE PHOtographs that exHIBit ABstract MEANings in their photoGRAPHic STRUCture.


Well, it seems to be difficult enough... But now, I can't said I've never heard about this...

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