Sentence accent
The sentence accent is one of the so-called suprasegmentals and stressed referred phrase of a sentence . Its peculiarity is that it cannot be read directly from the scriptures. In the spoken language, the sentence accent is of great value because the speaker can use the voice to draw the listener's attention to his own subject, which is subjectively considered important.
Appearance and effect
In German, the sentence accent is mostly on a word of the sentence that needs special emphasis or is in the focus of the sentence, whereby the position of the word may or may not be relevant. But it is also possible to emphasize several places in a sentence or entire clauses .
In interrogative sentences , the sentence accent is mostly on the question pronoun or the governing verb . In exclamation or statement sentences , it depends on the speaker how and where the accent (s) is (are) distributed. In the process, serious differences in meaning can emerge (e.g. ironic, concessional, affective, etc. reference). Topicalized parts of the sentence almost always have the sole accent, extremely rarely particles .
In English , which has a distinctly rigid topology , the sentence accent can shift the meaning of a sentence so much that it can be the main carrier of the information. In French , in which word accents are less pronounced than in German, the sentence accent also plays an important role.
Examples
- "The sky is blue ." (Accent to emphasize the predication and rhemas of the sentence)
- "The sky is blue." (Accent on the predicate to clarify a subjectively perceived truth)
- " The stars are not desired." Goethe (accent on the topicalized part of the sentence; so-called left shift )
- "It is not five degrees below zero, but five degrees above zero." (Two accents in the sentence, thus distinctly interpretable)
- " Is he running home?" (Accent is on the governing verb ; normal distribution of the accent)
- "Is he walking home ?" (The speaker puts the accent this way because he is amazed that the person is walking home instead of going to another location)
- " Who's coming today?" (The accent is on the question pronoun )
- " Money alone does not make you happy." (The emphasis is on the subject of the sentence in its entirety. The intention is to show that there are other ways of finding happiness besides money.)
- "Money alone does not make you happy." (The unusual and rare case that a particle carries the sentence accent. Here, the interpretation of the speaker's intention would be that he would rather emphasize the other possibilities for finding happiness compared to the previous sentence. By the strange In this context, emphasis is given to the meaning of an exclusive and sole good for happiness - if it is understood as the sole meaning of life - it is almost pejorative in character.)
- "Those who come today everything ?" (Accent on the particulate quantifier at the end of the sentence, because the speaker indicated that it believes that more will come as a person. In the previous example, only one person could get.)
- "What the read!" (The emphasis is on the - in this case - demonstrativischem products . Because the speaker would like to express his surprise at the designated person)
- “What he has read!” (The accent is on the quantifier because the speaker is amazed at the number of books read.)
- “What he has read !” (The accent is on the participle because the speaker is expressing surprise that the named person has obviously put so much effort into reading.)
- "School is so much fun ..." (The speaker sets the accent because he wants to emphasize the subjectively perceived antithesis and has an ironic intention.)
See also
literature
- Heidrun Pelz: Linguistics. An introduction. 9th edition, revised and considerably expanded. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-455-10331-6 .
- Ulrich F. Klein: Focus and Accent. Comments on the relationship between emphasis on content and grammar (= Cologne linguistic work - German studies. Vol. 19). 2nd Edition. Gabel, Hürth-Efferen 1992, ISBN 3-921527-24-4 .
- Andreas Lötscher: Sentence accent and functional sentence perspective in German (= linguistic work. Vol. 127). Niemeyer, Tübingen 1983, ISBN 3-484-30127-9 (also: Basel, University, habilitation paper, 1980).
