On the placement of accent in dialogue: A feature of context grammar

Abstract

It is well known that an English sentence may have its accent, or point of greatest prominence, on any of several syllables. This phenomenon has been called SHIFT.1 It is the feature of English that permits us to render such a sentence as The man can see the boy in a variety of ways, as follows: The man can see the Boy. The man can SEE the boy. The man CAN see the boy. The MAN can see the boy.