I want to know the phonetic differences between verbal structures.
Group A
(1) He lived a misearble life.
(2) She dreamed a beautiful dream.
Group 2
(3) He took a walk in the park.
(4) He gave a cry.
As for (1)(2), they contain cognate objects, for (3)(4) they contain light verb structures.
I hold that there are differences about sentence stress between Group A and B.
For Group A, sentence stress falls on 'lived' & 'miserable', first 'dream' & 'beautiful'.
For Group B, 'walk'and 'cry' receive stress other than light verbs.
Therefore information focus differs in terms of the two kinds of structures.
I am not a native English speaker. I wonder whether my judgement is true. Have linguists already pointed out the difference?
I express my gratitude if any scholar could give me a reply.
Zhang Aipu (China)
(Transferred from old LINGUIST List Ask-a-Linguist site)
