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This paper explores the sentential stress pattern of English unergative and unaccusative verb constructions. In particular, this paper argues in favor of the idea that the nature of sentential stress (also known as nuclear stress) can be captured effectively by the theory of phase and multiple spell-out. In analyzing the different stress patterns of English UEVC and UAVCs, this paper reviews the (dis)advantages of two recent phase-based analyses: Kahnemuyipour (2004, 2009) and Kratzer & Selkirk (2007). According to them, sentential stress is universally assigned to the highest phrase in the spell-out domain of a phase. In the case of the UEVC, for example, the verb receives a sentential stress since there’s no other phrases in the spell-out domain of the vP phase. In the case of the UAVC, however, the vP is not regarded as a strong phase (Chomsky 2001), and thus subject can get stressed. Although they are quite successful in explaining a difference between the two intransitive verb constructions, there are still some conceptual drawbacks. Based on the prosodic assignment hierarchy (i.e. USSAH), this paper proposes another analysis on sentential stress in the framework of a phase and spell-out theory. Under the USSAH system, sentential stress is assigned to the most highly ranked element in the spell-out domain. This analysis can resolve some serious stains of the previous phase-based analyses.