Le regole dell’intonazione americana.
1. Use staircase intonation to stress important information.
2. Nouns are stressed in sentences like dogs eat bones. The voice goes up speaking “dogs” and “bones.”.
3. Verbs are stressed in sentences like “they eat them” when we already know we are referring to dogs and bones. So the voice goes up speaking “eat.”
4. In questions the sentence maintains the same intonation as in a statement but the voice goes a step higher at the end. If the question is emotional or rethorical the voice rises up. “Where’s my caaaaaar?”
5. Words expressing new information, such as nouns, are stressed and said in a longer, musical way. Dadada raiiiin. “It sounds like rain.” You go down and stress the word “rain,” if you want to emphasize the fact that it is raining.
6. If you want to emphasize the opinion, stress the verb. It SOUNDS like rain, stressing “sounds” means it seems it is raining but it actually is not.
7. Verbs expressing contrast are stressed. You LIKE rain but HATE snow.
8. Can’t is stressed, while other modals contracted are not.
9. Inflection. In a sentence like “I didn’t say he stole the money” the meaning is different according to the word you stress.
10. Information is powerful.
11. In general nouns are stressed on the first sillable and verbs in the last. A CONflict vs to conFLICT.
12. Nel passaggio da un aggettivo a un verbo lo stress resta sulla prima sillaba, ma nell’aggettivo si riducono le parti non stressed. Per esempio approximate is said as aPRAKSmt whereas to approximate is said aPRAKSmeit.
13. Se sbagli ad accentare la sillaba, perdi il significato della parola e rischi di non essere capito.
14. The rule of thumb: stress nouns on the first syllable and verbs on the second syllable.
15. The good news: most of the words used in English are only one syllable.
16. When in doubt stress the noun