Word stress in a question

Question

Hi,I am trying to understand which word to stress in the following sentences. In sentence #1, I am expecting a name as the answer, and a number in Sentence #2. 1. Whose turn is it?      ... should I stress 'whose' or 'turn'?2.  How tall are you?     ... should I stress 'how' or 'tall'?Thanks,MG.

Avangi · Accepted Answer

Stress "turn" and "tall."

If there's been some previous discussion of the question, stress the verbs, "is" and "are."

"I can't believe you can reach that shelf! How tall are you, anyway?"

"Can't you two guys make up your minds? Whose turn is it?

CalifJim · Answer

I agree with Avangi.

Stress "turn" and "tall".

CJ

Musicgold · Answer

Thanks Avangi and CJ,

I am a bit confused now. If I used the following stress patterns, would the questions convey diffrent information?

1. Whose turn is it? ( instead of Whose turn is it?)

2. How tall are you? ( instead of How tall are you?)

In one of the two phonetics book, I have been using, says interogative words such as What, Why, Who, How should be stressed. The other book says suggest only 'turn' and 'tall'.

Thanks,

MG.

CalifJim · Answer

Musicgold ... interrogative words such as What, Why, Who, How should be stressed.

This advice is oversimplified. It should go on to say "when they are not used as modifiers". Stress the word that the interrogative word modifies if there is one.

What is your name?
but
What country are you from?

How do I get to Chicago?
but
How far is it to Chicago?

Clear enough?

CJ

Musicgold · Answer

CJ,

Thanks. So 'whose' and 'How' are acting as modifiers to 'turn' and 'tall', respectively?
Are the following sentences correct?

a. Who is your boss?
b. Who sent you here?
c. How did you come here?
d. Why are you here?
e. Who came in last?

Thanks,

MG.

CalifJim · Answer

MusicgoldSo 'whose' and 'How' are acting as modifiers to 'turn' and 'tall', respectively?

Yes. That's right.

a. Who is your boss?
b. Who sent you here? or Who sent you here? or Who sent you here?

c. How did you come/get here? or How did you come/get here?

d. Why are you here?
e. ~~Who came in last~~? Who came in last?

Who cannot modify anything.

The truth is that you may change the position of the usual stress if you want to emphasize a different word. The emphasized word is the one you are questioning.

Let's take b. as an example.

Who sent you here? - I didn't expect you to come here. You should have been sent somewhere else.
Who sent you here? - I didn't expect you to come here. I expected someone else to be here.
[Who sent you here? - I didn't expect you to be sent here. I'm surprised that anyone sent you here. -- Not as common.]

Who sent you here? - I need to know who did this. I may have to speak to that person because he or she has sent you to the wrong place. Or, if I know who sent you here, I will have a better idea of why you are here.
___________

How did you get here? - I didn't expect you to be here. Maybe I expected you to be somewhere else.

How did you get here? - I want to know if you took the bus, the train, ...
How did you get here? - I didn't expect to see you here. Maybe I expected someone else.
____________

With regard to phrasal verbs, as in e., if you want to stress the verb, stress its particle, not the main verb:

Who came in? Who went out? Who came in last? Who went out first?
Did you find out? Did they throw it away? I pushed it over. I helped them out.
It fell down. I picked it up.

CJ

Musicgold · Answer

CJ,

Thanks a lot. That is a great explanation.

Zoltán Király · Answer

I found this topic very interesting.
If we have a question and we don't expect a yes/no answer the last syllable should be unstressed. Am I right? For example:

What's your name.

What's - first syllable
your - second syllable
name - third syllable

But I don't understand where do we put the stress then. On "what's" or on "your", DA-da-da or da-DA-da?
Thank you!

Kzncc kzncc 88 · Answer

I wanna konw if there can't be any streess on the last syllable of the following sentence. "What are you doing? "

Word stress in a question

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