Theoretical phonetics. Study guide for second year students. Борискина О.О - 57 стр.

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      To better understand the concept of prominence, compare the following
two dialogues:
      1. A: HOW was the MOvie? ; B: It was TOO LONG.
      2. A: Was it a LONG DRIVE? B: It was TOO LONG.
      Although Speaker В says essentially the same thing in both dialogues, long
is the prominent word in the first dialogue (with too also receiving light stress as
a content word), since the idea of the movie's being a long one is the main
information Speaker В wishes to communicate in answer to how. However, in
the second dialogue, too receives emphatic stress since the speaker, in response
to the question about the length of the drive, wishes to highlight its
excessiveness. Moreover, in this utterance, long is old information and therefore
does not receive prominence.
The Guidelines for the Placement of Prominence
      1. Some degree of sentence stress tends to fall on all content words within
an utterance.
      2. When any word receiving stress has more than one syllable, it is only the
word's most strongly stressed syllable that carries the sentence stress.
      3. Within an intonation unit, there may be several words receiving sentence
stress but only one main idea or prominent element (or in the case of contrastive
stress, two).
      4. New information tends to receive prominence and generally occurs
toward the end of an utterance.
      5. If the speaker wishes to emphasize a given element even more strongly,
that element will receive emphatic stress.
      6. When contrast between two elements in an intonation unit is signaled,
both of these elements tend to receive contrastive stress; in such cases the
intonation unit will have two prominent elements.
      The following example demonstrates these points:
      1.Teacher: We're STUDYing phoNETics in this CLASS. (the main idea)
      2.There are WEEKly exAMS. (new information)
      3.The exAMS are Every THURSday. (new information)
      4. Student: Did you SAY TUESday or THURSday? (contrast)
      5. Teacher: I SAID THURSday. (clarification and emphasis)
      The word Phonetics is the most meaningful piece of information in line 1,
and thus receives prominence. The new, and thus highlighted, information in
line 2 is exams, just as Thursday the new information in line 3 (not exams,
which were previously mentioned and are therefore old information). In line 4,
the student is not sure of the message and asks for clarification, giving extra
emphasis to the contrasting items Tuesday and Thursday. Finally, in line 5, the
teacher clarifies the matter, placing extra emphasis on Thursday.
      So, the main idea or new information receiving ргоminence tends to come
toward the end in unmarked utterances. However, the communicative context
can override this general principle. Notice what happens when the speaker
intentionally wishes to highlight some other element in the utterance:
      1. JOHN'S CAR is WHITE. (unmarked)