A comparative analysis of English nuclear stress principles in conversation

Abstract Nuclear stress (or sentence stress) as a prosodic feature marks information flow in spoken English, and has received some treatment the linguistics literature, most notably pragmatics, but less so newer phonological paradigms. Current theories might shed light on this feature, such Optimality Theory (OT) cognitive grammar (CG). This paper compares potential insights likely predictions of these two approaches for nuclear stress, by examining recorded conversation native US English speakers. The descriptive statistics indicate pattern distributions expected, tokens show particular pragmatic discourse functions stress. OT framework can better explain interaction different levels prosody, grammar, structure, while CG offer more holistic explanation its sociopragmatic functions, may thus be applicable to studies, applied linguistics, pedagogy. Implications are discussed theory phonology, L2