ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how intonation and grammar set up choices for speakers to make. These choices, in turn, become the basis of how hearers interpret what speakers say and why they have said it. The chapter explains a distinction between two types of information in an idea unit. First, there is information that is relatively new and relatively unpredictable, new information. Second, there is information that is already known or predictable, old information. Speakers must put more stress on new information than on old information. Furthermore, the speaker must pick one piece of new information to have focus stress, the most prominent level of stress in an intonation contour. English clauses take the form of a subject and a predicate. The subject is the topic of the clause; it is what the clause is about. The predicate is what is being said about the subject.
