• Remember:

Words that carry meaning (nouns, verbs, adjectives and

adverbs) are known as content words. They usually receive
greater prominence in an utterance and are therefore accented.
On the other hand, words that express grammatical relationships
(conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs and some
adjectival words) are known as structure words. They are
generally non-prominent and are hence not accented.
Example:
Oh, "sorry. "False a"larm. He’s "not a "burglar. He’s "dating my
"daughter.

The structure words that may be weakened are the following:

Adjectival Pronouns Conjunctions Prepositions Auxiliary

Words verbs

a, an, the, he, him, her, and, but, at, from, for, BE (am/is/
some, his, us, them, as, than, of, to are/was/
her there (be) that were),
that have, has,
had,
do, does,
shall, will,
can, must,
would,should,
could