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Sentence stress

Prosody
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The emphasis patterns applied to individual words within sentences based on meaning and grammatical function

Detailed Definition
Sentence stress determines which words receive emphasis in a utterance; content words typically receive stress while function words remain unstressed, affecting rhythm and intelligibility. In poetry, sentence stress patterns may align with or conflict against metrical stress, creating harmony or tension; sophisticated poets manipulate the relationship between sentence stress and metrical stress to emphasize meaning, create subtle irony, or challenge readers' expectations of linguistic naturalness.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” Antony’s “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears” places sentence stress on “lend,” “me,” “your,” “ears” for rhetorical power; In Dickinson’s “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” sentence stress falls on “Nobody” and “you” for identity contrast; In Hughes’s “I, Too,” “I, too, sing America” stresses “I” and “America” to assert presence; In Frost’s “Mending Wall,” “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” stresses “Something,” “doesn’t,” “love,” “wall” to convey mystery; In Plath’s “Mirror,” “I am silver and exact” stresses “silver” and “exact” for precision; In Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” “I contain multitudes” stresses “contain” and “multitudes” for expansive effect.
Additional Notes
Sentence stress (or lexical stress) refers to the natural emphasis placed on certain syllables within words and phrases during speech. In prosody, sentence stress interacts with metrical stress—sometimes aligning (reinforcing the meter) or conflicting (creating tension or syncopation). Skilled poets manipulate this interplay for expressive effect. For example, Shakespeare often uses sentence stress to highlight key words even in regular iambic pentameter. Prosodists distinguish sentence stress from metrical stress to avoid mechanical scansion.
Also Known As
lexical stress word stress natural stress
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