Loss of Stress With Repeated Information

In English stress is variable. In a noun phrase such as blue car, the main stress is on the noun car. However, in the question Is your car the blue car or the red car? the main stress is on blue and on red. The reason is that the word car is repeated.

In the phrase vegetable soup or green salad, the nouns soup and salad are stressed. This is in contrast to the phrase vegetable soup or chicken soup. This phrase repeats the noun soup. The result is that the nouns vegetable and chicken are stressed.

The loss of stress can also be illustrated with sports scores. With scores such as Vancouver 4 Toronto 2 and Montreal 3 Los Angeles 1, the main stress is on the final number. This is not the case with tied scores. With scores such as Vancouver 2 Toronto 2 and Montreal 1 Los Angeles 1, the main stress is on the city which precedes the final number. The reason is that the final number is repeated and is thus not stressed.

English words which repeat information lose stress. The result is that the stress shifts to the preceding word. This contrasts with many other languages.