Events

We see the same preference for placing a nuclear accent on a noun rather than a verb in so-called event sentences. These are sentences describing an event, where the verb is intransitive. The nucleus tends to be located on the subject, provided it is lexically filled, even if the verb contains apparently new information:

Compare the corresponding sentences with a non-lexical (pronoun) subject:

Some event sentences involve an adjective as well as a verb, and we again see the noun receiving the nuclear accent, rather than the verb or the adjective:

Compare the equivalent sentences with a pronominal subject: Description of weather count as sentences of this type:

So do statements relating to unpleasant bodily sensation:

Less easy to categorize is:

which nevertheless corresponds to:

The tonicity of event sentences is paradoxically in that they can apparently involve very broad focus, being uttered for example as a response to What happened? or What's the matter? Yet their nucleus is not located on the last lexical item adding (apparently) new information. One possible explanation is that the verb (or adjective) in an event sentence is predictable from the context, so does not need to be in focus. In case of The phone's ringing, we know what telephones typically do is ring. Compare a possible sentence:

where the verb exploded is truely not 'given' and thus demands the nucleus.

In written English, there is an ambiguity in sentences such as Dogs must be carried (a public notice in the London Underground). The intended reading, 'if you have a dog with you, you must carry it', has the focus on carried and would be spoken as:

The other possible reading, 'everyone must carry a dog', has the focus on dogs and would be spoken as: