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Musicgold Posted 15 years ago
Grammar

Stressing adjectives and adverbs

Hi,

I am trying to understand how native speakers choose which words to stress when a noun has multiple adjectives before it. Consider the following sentence, for example,



First time liberal candidate Andrew Smith pulled out a 230-vote victory over widely known Conservative Kyle Hargitai.



Thanks,

MG.
  

Top answer

' First ' time '' Liberal ' candidate ' Andrew '' Smith ' pulled '' out a ' 2 ' 30-vote ' victory over ' widely known Con ' servative ' Kyle '' Hargitai.

— Mister Micawber

  • ' First ' time '' Liberal ' candidate ' Andrew '' Smith ' pulled '' out a ' 2 ' 30-vote ' victory over ' widely known Con ' servative ' Kyle '' Hargitai.
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3 Answers
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'First 'time ''Liberal 'candidate 'Andrew ''Smith 'pulled ''out a '2'30-vote 'victory over 'widely known Con'servative 'Kyle ''Hargitai.
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Thanks MM.

It was my understanding that native speakers speak English with a rhythm, alternating stressed and un-stressed word groups. By looking at your stress marks, it seems that the speaker would have to speak almost the whole sentence with a stress. What am I missing?
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You're missing that this is a whole string of new information. You are also missing the unstressed syllable between. The only exceptions to the inclusion of one or more unstressed syllables with the set of stress units is (a) single-syllable units and (b) number + unit, which often/usually receive equal stress:

'First 'time (b)
''Liberal
'can
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