Phonetics and Phonology – Rules for Sentence Stress

Content Words – These words carry meaning on their own. They are usually stressed.

a) Nouns – car, baby, woman, chair, pepper, love....

b) Verbs – complete, complain, update – come (not be, not have, not auxiliary verbs)
c) Adjectives – clear, pretty, beautiful –tall –small…
d) Adverbs – never –always – badly – beautifully – next – later – there – here…
e) Questions words – What, where, when, how, which, who.
Not content words, but generally stressed
a) Negative contractions – don’t, doesn’t, won’t, can’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t, haven’t, hasn’t.
b) Two-syllable prepositions – below, above…
c) One-syllable prepositions at the end of sentences or questions – Where is she going to? –
I don’t want to / How did he get in?
d) Reflexive Pronouns – myself – yourself – himself –herself – ourselves…
e) Auxiliaries at the end of short answers and sentences – Yes, I am /ӕ /¿. Yes, he can /ӕ/.

Function Words – These words carry little to no meaning in the sentence. These words are
generally NOT STRESSED!

a) Subject Pronouns – I , you, he, she. It, we, they.

b) Object Pronouns – me, you, him, her, us, them.
c) Articles – a, an, the.
d) One-syllable prepositions – in, on, at, to, etc.
e) Conjunctions – and, but, or, when, if, etc.
f) Auxiliary verbs – can, have, has, would, could, should, ought to, will, am, is, are, etc.
g) Relative pronouns – who, that, where, when, whose, which, etc.
h) Demonstratives – this, that, these, those. (apply secondary stress ruling to these)

Words Reduced to /ә/ in regular speech

am – have – has – and – or –to – the (before consonant sounds) – can.

He lives in an apartment.

o O o o o O o

I can dance very well. Turn on the light. Call me when it’s done. That’s the one (that) I want.

o o O Oo O o O o O O o o o O o o O o o O
I took English in high school. I didn’t take French. My teachers were very encouraging.
“oOO” the following piece of text:

Joe McCoy helped start the legend of the cowboy. Before the railroads joined the East
coast to the West (at the time the Midwest was also considered the West), the cattle
raised in Texas were not very profitable because the cows could not be transported to the
population centers of the East.