structural:summarization, stylistic:tone, information:classification, quality:correction
Stress

Stress functions as the means of making a syllable prominent. Stress may be studied in relation to individual words (named "word stress" or lexical stress) or in relation to larger units of speech (traditionally referred to as "sentence stress" but more appropriately named " prosodic stress "). Stressed syllables are made prominent by several variables. Stress is typically associated with the following:

Some of these cues are more powerful or prominent than others. Alan Cruttenden, for example, writes "Perceptual experiments have clearly shown that, in English at any rate, the three features (pitch, length and loudness) form a scale of importance in bringing syllables into prominence, pitch being the most efficacious, and loudness the least so".

When pitch prominence is the major factor, the resulting prominence is often called accent rather than stress.

There is considerable variation from language to language concerning the role of stress in identifying words or in interpreting grammar and syntax.