Introduction: Pragmatic and Semantic Effects of Accentuation

Abstract

The following examples show that accentuation can change the conditions under which a sentence can be used:

• (1) a. Who did John introduce to Sue? — John introduced BILL to Sue.

• b. To whom did John introduce Bill? — John introduced Bill to SUE.

The declarative sentences in the examples (1-a) and (1-b) can be used felicitously as answers to the questions preceding them. The senctence with stress on “Bill” (example (1-a)), however, is not a felicitous answer to the question of example (1-b), nor can the sentence with stress on “Sue” (example (1-b)) be used as a reply to the question of example (1-a). Due to the different stress patterns both sentences require different utterance contexts; they have different use conditions.