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fw
Joined: 12 Oct 2005 Posts: 361
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Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 3:51 pm Post subject: primary stress |
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Hello everyone.
I'm interested in the stress placement of the expression "winning ...." A dictionary at hand says "winning run," for example, the first part(="winning") has the primary stress.
How about the following expressions?
1. winning game
2. winning ball
Best regards,
fw |
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Mister Micawber

Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 774 Location: Yokohama
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Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 8:40 pm Post subject: |
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It's not that easy, fw. It depends on context. Here, you have created a list, and so the stress will fall on the items that are different:
winning BALL
winning GAME
winning RUN
In a sentence, however, the WINning may well take the stress-- or it may not:
WINning the game is not as important as how you PLAY it.
We won the GAME, but we lost the MATCH.
The WINning BALL was presented to the coach.
. _________________ "I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences." � Gertrude Stein
...............
Canadian-American who teaches English for a living at Mr Micawber's |
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fw
Joined: 12 Oct 2005 Posts: 361
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Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 3:43 pm Post subject: |
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Thank you for your reply, Mister Micawber.
Mister Micawber wrote: |
It's not that easy, fw. It depends on context. Here, you have created a list, and so the stress will fall on the items that are different:
winning BALL
winning GAME
winning RUN
In a sentence, however, the WINning may well take the stress-- or it may not:
WINning the game is not as important as how you PLAY it.
We won the GAME, but we lost the MATCH.
The WINning BALL was presented to the coach.
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I did not intend you to take my examples in a list or in a particular sentence. I just wanted them to be isolated, "out- of-the- blue" phrase examples.
I assume, from the third sentence example you mentioned, at least "winning ball" has an even stress, with the same degree of stress on each item. Am I correct?
How about "winning game"? |
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Mister Micawber

Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 774 Location: Yokohama
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Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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Quote: |
I did not intend you to take my examples in a list or in a particular sentence. I just wanted them to be isolated, "out- of-the- blue" phrase examples. |
This is the fundamental mistake of the language student. Language characteristics-- valid ones-- exist only within context. There is no correct stress placement for the phrase in isolation. Any permutation is possible.
. _________________ "I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences." � Gertrude Stein
...............
Canadian-American who teaches English for a living at Mr Micawber's |
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