Intonation question 2

Question

Hi,I am not sure which words to stress in the following sentences. Can you please help me?1. The Kakanega forest in western Keneya is...2. Every moment of every day I missed you.Thanks,MG.

Avangi · Accepted Answer

Musicgold 1. The Kakanega forest in western Keneya is...

2. Every moment of every day I missed you.

The proper noun for the forest is anybody's guess.

CalifJim · Answer

Keneya or Kenya?

Anonymous · Answer

Thanks folks.

It should be Kenya.

Kooyeen · Answer

So which words should be stressed here? Is there only one correct "solution"?
I'm undecided...
In the second one, I think I would randomly stress:
Every moment of every day, I missed you.
But I don't know why! It's completely out of context. And there are definitely other ways to say it, depending on lots of things. I still don't think there can be any simple rules of thumb, as far as sentence stress is concerned.
So what's the solution?

Musicgold · Answer

1. The Kakanega forest in western Keneya is...

My understanding was that since both 'Kakanega forest' and 'Western Kenya' are two-word proper nouns, the second word should be stressed. Not sure now.

Avangi · Answer

Kooyeen I'm undecided...

So what's the solution? You could flip a coin.[:^)]

I'm not sure what you mean by "randomly stress."
One way one time and another way another time?

Kooyeen · Answer

AvangiI'm not sure what you mean by "randomly stress."
One way one time and another way another time?

Lol, it means that I can't think of any reasons or rules, and I would just say a sentence the way I like it. There are some basic rules that are generally true (ex: don't stress pronouns, "I need you"), but when it comes to complex sentences... it's hard to come up with a rule.
Even the author of American Accent Training says that you need to stress "content words" and not adjectives in examples like "There is a black car", but she contradicts herself in the last chapters, where she says that such rule doesn't apply to more complex sentences.

Avangi · Answer

KooyeenSo which words should be stressed here? Is there only one correct "solution"?
I'm undecided...
In the second one, I think I would randomly stress:
Every moment of every day, I missed you.
But I don't know why! It's completely out of context. And there are definitely other ways to say it, depending on lots of things. I still don't think there can be any simple rules of thumb, as far as sentence stress is concerned.
So what's the solution? So is this a rhetorical question? Are you just making a general statement that context is important? Practically every example we deal with here is by nature "completely out of context."

If I were visiting a very sick friend in hospital, and he/she asked me to read his/her mail to him/her; and I opened a greeting card which bore only the cited sentence; I would read it as I have suggested.
If, on the other hand, this were a reply to something like, "You know, there were moments when I missed you terribly," I would come back with "Every moment etc." In other words, I stress the qualifier because I want to claim that "moment" has been misqualified.

"Every day" would be used when "day" is being introduced as a new parameter.
But if I were replying to "You know, there were some days when I missed you terribly," I would come back with "I missed you every day," stressing the qualifier to indicate that I'm re-qualifying "day."
In other words, I feel that your rendition is the one which requires "special" context.
In the greeting card scenario (no context) both the parameters (moment; day) and the qualifiers (every) are significant.

Kooyeen · Answer

No, I was just confused, and I was really wondering where native speakers would put the stress in that sentence... because I don't even feel I can trust some of the basic guidelines on sentence stress.
For example, some say that if you say "my car", you should stress "car", unless there is a good reason to put the stress on "my" (like if you are emphasizing it's yours). But Ann Cook (the author of American A. T.) in her course says that in the following sentence learners should normally put the stress on "my", and not on "name":

Hello, my name is Ann.
But if you think about it, if you were to say "This is my name", the neutral stress pattern would cause the stress to be on "name".

It's all these contraddictions that make me skeptical about "rules" that try to explain stress patterns. I skipped all the part on stress and intonation in that course, and I hoped I would learn just by practicing listening. But I haven't learned much, I'm afraid, lol

Avangi · Answer

I can't imagine stressing the "****." But context is everything.
Are you introducing yourself as the main person, or are you offering your name as one among many?
Hello. My name is Ann. I'll be speaking to you tonight about how to make more money.

Hello. My name is Ann. What's yours? Of course there are big stresses and little stresses.

I haven't read any of this stuff, but I think it's a fairly safe principle to stress the qualifer when the noun is a constant and the qualifier is a variable. (And vice versa.)

My car is fast. Your car is slow.
My car is fast. My truck is slow.

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