Pronunciation of "I love this song."

Question

The phrase "I love this song." has two content words: LOVE and SONG. I'm not sure about the word "this". I think it's a determiner that describes the noun. Am I right? Although it's true that any word can be stressed to give emphasis, there is a default unemphatic accent. I don't want to shift stress and I don't need special emphasis. So in this situation the word "this" don't need stress. Am I right? I only need to stress "this" when I want to emphasis and tell the listener "this" song and not the other song. Am I right?

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

(The following is US usage.)

The sentence, "I love this song.", is most often said as, "I LOVE this song.", that is, with the word "love" emphasized over all the others. (Furthermore, in US English the emphasized word is often "drawled out.")

GPY · Answer

Zoltán Király I'm not sure about the word "this". I think it's a determiner that describes the noun. Am I right?

Yes.

Zoltán Király I don't want to shift stress and I don't need special emphasis. So in this situation the word "this" don't need stress. Am I right?

Yes.

Zoltán KirályI only need to stress "this" when I want to emphasis and tell the listener "this" song and not the other song. Am I right?

Yes.

Zoltán Király · Answer

(The following is US usage.)

The sentence, "I love this song.", is most often said as, "I LOVE this song.", that is, with the word "love" emphasized over all the others. (Furthermore, in US English the emphasized word is often "drawled out.")

I know but more I think about primary and secondary stress at sentence level the more confused I get. I think about primary and secondary stress only at word level.

I Beverly Lujan from her book 'The American Accent Guide':

Primary stress is normally placed on the last content word, and that is where the final inflection occurs

So, I usually stress all content words in phrases and sentences, no matter what and I don't care about the degree of the stress. Is it secondary? Is it primary? For me all syllables are stressed equally with perhaps a bit more stress on the last content word. I asked for feedback from native speakers and they said I sound natural. If I stress LOVE and SONG I think it's perfectly normal. What I mean by stress is that I pronounce them clearly and I don't reduce them.

Zoltán Király · Answer

What I meant is, I usually stress all content words in phrases and sentences unless I need special emphasis.

GPY · Answer

Zoltán KirályPrimary stress is normally placed on the last content word

There are very frequent exceptions to this supposed rule.

Zoltán Király I asked for feedback from native speakers and they said I sound natural. If I stress LOVE and SONG I think it's perfectly normal.

"love" normally has the main stress of the sentence. "song" has secondary stress, but in practice it can vary from almost no stress to stress almost as great as "love".

Zoltán Király · Answer

Is there any difference between primary and secondary stress in fast connected and casual American speech other than their vowels are not reduced to the schwa vowel? I probably won't measure the micro seconds. I have an older book with English phrases and the author only uses one stress mark (the ' mark) everywhere and arrows to show the inflection. Of course, stress can be shifted and you are perfectly right. The final inflection not always occur on the last content word.

GPY · Answer

Zoltán KirályIs there any difference between primary and secondary stress in fast connected and casual American speech?

In most people's speech there is probably a continuous spectrum of levels of stress, from completely unstressed to strongly stressed. It is convenient to classify these as primary stress, secondary stress and unstressed.

Apart from maybe a few individual words and phrases, I don't think there are systematic differences between stress in American English and stress in British English.

Pronunciation of "I love this song."

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