In English changing the stressed word in a sentence changes the contextual meaning - the sub-text, if you will - of a sentence so that

"JOHN said it was here." implies that others might have said it wasn't,

but

"John SAID it was here." implies that he was either lying or mistaken.

In a small discussion on a language teaching board someone suggested that it's the same in all languages. I have my doubts. Does anyone know the answer? Does prosodic stress function the same way in other languages or do they have other ways of indicating the same thing?

I think it does make some difference in English, but not as much as in other languages. In your example, I wouldn't take the second example the way you did, but I would take the first one that way.

I just don't know about all languages. That seems like a pretty big assumption. I suspect either zmj or goofy would know.

the fact that you have to teach it to ESL students suggests that it's not the same in all languages.

quote:

Originally posted by goofy:
the fact that you have to teach it to ESL students suggests that it's not the same in all languages.

It certainly suggests it to me... but the correspondent on the language teaching board I referred to seemed to think otherwise.

Students often seem to find some difficulty in making the stresses and rhythms of English sound natural, even when they have a good grasp of the vocabulary and grammar.

quote:

"John said it was here."

can be stressed to give multiple variations. Stress IT and emphasize a particular item. WAS implies the thing has disappeared after being in that location. HERE states it was in that place originally.

JOHN said it was HERE gives a questioning aspect

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Proofreader>,

Both French and Spanish sound musical or percussive to the ear precisely because speakers tend not to disrupt the rhythm of the language by raising the volume of individual words to change contextual meaning. In both languages, e.g., if you wish to stress your preference (as opposed to someone else's), you add a pronoun:
Eng - I prefer chocolate. (no stress= I prefer)
Fr - Moi, je préfère le chocolat (no stress= Je préfère)
Sp - Yo prefiero el chocolate. (no stress= Prefiero)

There are many exceptions & technicalities; French is considered to be an unstressed language, whereas Spanish does have variable stress, that is, there are identical words whose meaning is distinguished by where the stress falls. But generally they are similar when it comes to voluntarily choosing to stress an element of the sentence: it's done by adding words (or perhaps choosing a different word with a stronger meaning) far more often than by stressing a word. For example in informal conversation, an English speaker might emphasize very with volume & vowel extension, where the French or Spanish speaker would be more likely to just repeat the word without voice emphasis ('très très' or 'muy muy').

And, of course, we repeat words as well. "I am very, very happy today", versus "I am very happy today.

Yes, Kalleh, I think that's why English remains everyone's favorite second language. There are so many options, it accommodates everybody!