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Sentence stress is the pattern of stressed and unstressed words across a sentence. Normally this emphasis is on words that carry important information, although this can change significantly, depending on the specific meaning the speaker wants to communicate.

The way stress moves in order to change the message is an extremely important part of pronunciation

The English language is often referred to as stress-timed. This means that stress in a spoken sentence occurs at regular intervals and the length it takes to say something depends on the number of stressed syllables rather than the number of syllables itself.

Stress timing can help speakers communicate meaning. We need to be made aware of the fact that the way we say something can affect it's meaning.

If you remove the structure words from a sentence, you will probably still understand the sentence.

If you remove the content words from a sentence, you will not understand the sentence. The sentence has no sense or meaning.