Intonation and Phrasing: The Rhythm and Emphasis of English
8/8/2025
1. Intonation, Phrasing, and Sentence Stress
Intonation refers to which words in a sentence are emphasized or stressed.
Knowing the stress of individual words or compound nouns isn't enough — within a sentence, some words that should be stressed may be weakened, and others that usually aren’t may become highlighted.
This doesn’t just affect how natural you sound.
Intonation is part of the meaning in English!
Intonation helps communicate:
- Which information is important, and which is background (content vs. function words);
- What’s new information vs. what’s already known;
- Which words express contrast.
We summarize these into three key intonation rules:
✅ Rule 1: For new information, content words are stressed, function words are not
Content words include: nouns, verbs, adjectives, some adverbs
Function words include: articles, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, the verb be, and some adverbs
Example:
My best friend Elizabeth bent down to pet a little cat near the edge of the road, then continued on her way.
Stressed words (bolded):
My best friend **Elizabeth bent down to pet a little cat near the edge of the road, then continued on her way.
🔁 Practice:
Try emphasizing only the bolded words — does it sound more natural?
✅ Rule 2: Old information is not stressed again
If a content word has already appeared in the sentence or conversation, it is not stressed again when repeated.
This is similar in many languages, like Chinese or even English:
- A: This cake is really good.
- B: Wow, it’s really good!
The stress shifts to “really,” while the rest becomes lighter and quicker.
In English, this rule is even more important, as ignoring it can make the sentence sound disjointed.
✅ Rule 3: In contrast, only the contrasting words get stressed
When there’s contrast, only the words in contrast are stressed —
even if other content words are present, they are de-emphasized.
Examples:
- I said to look under the table, not on the table!
- It’s a pen, not a pin!
🧠 In many languages, contrast is also emphasized by word order — English does this rhythmically.
2. Phrasing
We naturally pause while speaking — not just to breathe, but to help listeners understand the grammatical and logical structure of what we’re saying.
📌 Common phrasing rules in English:
- Short pause after punctuation:
, . ; : ! ?
- Pause after the subject:
The boy sitting next to me | is named David.
- Pause before conjunctions: and, or, but, however...
- Pause before prepositions: on, in, to, by... (except “of,” which often sticks to the noun)
- Pause before subordinate clauses (e.g., with “that”):
I know | that you heard me.
3. Tonic Stress
Tonic stress is the last major stress in a phrase — it plays a special role in intonation.
Example:
My best friend Elizabeth |
→ The syllable-zabeth
in “Elizabeth” carries the tonic stress
🌀 How is it different from regular stress?
- It has the highest pitch of the entire phrase
- It’s followed by a fast drop and slight rise — creating a typical "ʅ"-shaped melody
This is called continuation rise, indicating that the sentence or idea is not finished — as opposed to final falling tone at the end of a statement.
✅ Suggested Practice
At first, applying these intonation rules may feel unnatural —
that’s because your native rhythm is likely fossilized.
But language learning is about building new habits.
💡 Practice 10 minutes a day with the “shadowing” method,
and you’ll gradually develop a natural rhythm and stress pattern — and start speaking fluid, natural English!
📚 Source
Text by Karen Steffen Chung
Associate Professor, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University