2295: Prosodic Stress Mar 29, 2021

In addition to the way that an individual word will have stress, stress in a sentence adds or indeed creates meaning. For instance:

[*x* indicating stress]

*He* didn't rob her (indicates someone else was a robber)

He didn't rob *her* (indicates someone else was robbed)

This sort of differentiation of meaning can be seen in practically any part of a sentences, even though the literal, structural form will be the same. This is known as prosodic stress since it is the prosody of the sentence which acts to add meaning. Any fun examples of this, write in the comments.