• A syllable stress is a word that is pronounced with a simple breath pulse.
• If the rushing of air from our mouth occurs once as you pronounce a word, you have produced a syllable.

Kinds of Syllabic Stress

• Monosyllabic Stress Word: These are words that have only one syllable. For example:
  • brush
  • push
  • laugh
  • cream
  • room
  • cheat
  • town
  • sharp
  • phone, etc.
• Bi-syllabic Stress Word: These are words that contain two syllables. In bi-syllabic words, only one word is stressed while the other is unstressed. For example:
  • painter
  • doctor
  • local
  • river
  • listen
  • admire
  • mature
  • subdue
  • compare, etc.
• NOTE: Most two-syllable nouns and adjectives have stress on the first syllable while most two-syllable verbs have stress on the second syllable.
  
• Poly-syllabic Word: These are words that have more than two syllables. For example:
  • promotion
  • certification
  • confusion
  • decision
  • democratic
  • government
  • transporter, etc.
    

SENTENCE STRESS

• Words in a sentence are not all given the same salience in oral English.
• Some words are picked out and are stressed in contrast to others.
• The one that is the most stressed is said to receive the sentence stress.
• This usually implies difference in meaning.
• In the following sentences, the sentence stress is indicated in bold case.
• Consider the difference in meaning for each of these scenarios.