Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Stress

HE's WAIting for HER to deLIver on her PROmise.
 
Have I put the stress on the right syllables? In particular, I think the 
first "her" should be stressed.
 
-- 
Kiuhnm
 
La Natura cerca sempre la via più economica,
quindi fa economia anche nel cercarla.
 

 first "her" should be stressed.
 
I'm not certain whether you're playing with identifying the most 
stressed syllable of each word or the natural rhythm of stress to impart 
emphasis to meaning.
 
There are several ways to say the sentence. The syllables that you chose 
to emphasize are one acceptable way. I'm sure that you know that context 
influences the choice of syllables to stress.
 
Regarding your thought that the first "her" should be stressed, it is 
quite normal to stress "her" but I can imagine a different mapping. For 
example, the second "her" is a highly attractive stress target, and it 
would be especially appropriate if he had made and fulfilled a previous 
promise.
 
I haven't perceived any difference in the way Italian speakers or 
English speakers stress words to emphasize meaning, but that may just be 
naiveté on my part. Regarding stressing the wrong syllable in normal 
speech, I'm guilty of that in Italian because I read the language so 
much more than I listen to it.
 

 much more than I listen to it.
 
There's a profound difference between our two languages. Mine is 
syllable-timed while yours is stress-timed.
See this very brief (maybe too brief!) explanation:
https://www.lucidaccent.com/post/2017/07/23/syllable-stress-vs-syllable-timed
 
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Why is that even a thing?
 
I would stress this longer explanation: 
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/446b/1a6798e4ccba7a9eb406472ef23ccac22f44.pdf
 
 
If you can clearly differentiate the rhythms between Spanish 
(syllable-timed) and Portuguese (stress-timed), I am in awe of your 
lilting imagination.

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La pubblicazione che hai citato mette in discussione la teoria 
dell'isocronia, più che altro. Non sembra negare l'esistenza delle 
classi ritmiche.
In più si tratta di una singola pubblicazione che, a quanto sembra, non 
ha alcuna citazione, quindi non possiamo sapere quanto sia attendibile.
Una ricerca con google scholar mostra che la classificazione 
stress-timed VS syllable-timed continua ad esistere. Ad essere più o 
meno scomparsa è l'idea dell'isocronia.
Comunque non voglio indagare oltre per mancanza di tempo.
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 [...]
 
About that, there is a bit in Leo Rosten's "The Joy of Yiddish" on how the
yiddish language has influenced English, and in particular on how stressing a
different word can change the meaning of a phrase. It's in the Preface so you
can read it on Google Books.
 
G
 

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Yes, but that's true in Italian as well:
   *Io* non ho rubato il tuo portafoglio! [sarà stato qualcun altro]
   Io non ho *rubato* il tuo portafoglio! [lo solo preso in prestito]
   Io non ho rubato il *tuo* portafoglio! [ho rubato quello di un altro]
   Io non ho rubato il tuo *portafoglio*! [ti ho rubato qualcos'altro]
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OMG! l'HO solo preso in prestito!
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A noi umani piace creare modelli e quindi inserire le nostre esperienze 
nelle categorie che creiamo. Sono scettico quando gli artifici non 
suonano veri e sono incoraggiato di trovare un dotto che articola un 
simile scetticismo, dato che non sono dotto di linguistica.

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I agree with you, but I also think that one cannot trust one single 
paper unless it has withstood great scrutiny from peers. Moreover, I 
briefly "reviewed" several papers about vowel reduction and rhythm and 
found contradictory claims, which usually means that a topic is not yet 
well understood.
Incidentally, I've recently become aware, to my dismay, of the fact that 
most of psychology is pseudo-science. That didn't surprise me too much 
as I already knew that many claims and theories were conjectural at 
best, but I would never have guessed that the main issue was the blatant 
misuse of statistical methods!
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