1. Stress-neutral suffixes. Included in this category are all inflexional and many common derivational suffixes. Some inflexions are non-syllabic like plural, possessive, and third person singular -s (but these are syllabic following /s, z, J, 3, tf, d3/, and past tense -t (this is syllabic following /t, d/); other inflexions are monosyllabic like -er, -est and -ing. Most derivational suffixes ending in -y(-ie), e.g. {-ary, -ery, -ory, -су, -асу, -ty, diminutive -y, adjectival -y, and ad­verbial -ly) are stress-neutral: infirm — infirmary, 'celibate—'celibacy, 'difficult— 'difficulty, pot — 'potty, 'usual — 'usually. Other suffixes in this category include -ish, -ism, -ist, -ize, -ment, and agentive -ermd female -ess, e.g. fool—foolish, 'alcohol— 'alcoholism, 'separate — 'separatist, 'circular— 'circularize, disa'gree — disagreement, lead— 'leader, 'lion — 'lioness. All the examples given here con­cern stems which are free forms: in the case of stems which are not free forms some of these suffixes fall into other categories.

2. Stress-attracting suffixes. Some common derivational suffixes in this category are -ade, -eer, -esque, -ette, and -ation (which could be analysed into a double suffix -ate plus -ion), e.g. es'cape — esca'pade, 'moun­tain — mountain'eer, 'picture — picturesque, 'usher — usherette, 'private — privatization. Verbal -ate belongs here in disyllables, e.g. migrate.

3. Stress-fixing suffixes.

On final syllable of stem — here belong -ic, -ion, -ity, e.g. 'chaos — cha'ot-ic, de'vote — de'votion, 'curious — curiosity. In the case of -ion most words are formed from free-form disyllabic verbal stems stressed on the second syllable and -Ion could therefore equally well be regarded as stress-neutral; however, since the final syllable on the stem is almost unexceptionally stressed in bound stems as well, e.g. com'plexion, o'ccasion, it is better regarded as stress-fixing.

On penultimate syllable of stem — the number in this category is small, the most important being verbal -ate in words of more than two syllables, most involving bound forms, e.g. 'augurate, exco'mmunicate, 'operate.

On final or penultimate of root according to the weight of the final syllable — here belongs -ative, which is added to a similar set of bound forms as is -ate above, cf. 'operative, 'qualitative, repre'sentative, argumentative. Here are also -ency and adjectival -al, e.g. 'presidency but emergen­cy, 'pharynx, pharyngeal but 'medicine, medicinal.

Besides those suffixes above which have been noted as preferring one pattern when suffixed to a free form and another pattern when suffixed to a bound form, there are others which vacillate freely between two patterns. A common suffix of this sort is -able which is in most cases stress-neutral, e.g. a'dore — a'dorable, com'panion — com'panionable, 'realize — 'realizable. How­ever, in a number of disyllabic stems with stress on the final syllable the stress may be shifted to the first syllable of the stem: 'admirable, 'amicable, 'comparable, 'lamentable, 'preferable, 'reputable, (ir)'reparable. But the general pres­sure from the stress-neutrality of -able may lead to alternative pronunciations of words with the stress on the final syllable of the stem which are given the status of the norm in EPD, 2003, e.g. Applicable, despicable, disputable, la'mentable, etc. To add to the confusion there are some changes in the opposite direction, e.g. 'demonstrate — demonstrable, 'extricate — ex'tricable, 'rec­oncile — recon'cilable (all of which have an alternative form with initial stress). In most cases the form with the shifted stress (either right to left or left to right) is still more acceptable pronunciation in RE

4.6.3. Prefixes

Prefixes are generally stress-neutral, e.g. de-, dis-, in- (and various as­similated forms like il-, im-, in-, ir-)_t mal-, pseudo-, re-, sub-, un-, e.g. defoliate, disin'genuous, inco'rrect, illiterate, imma'ture, malfunction, misreport, pseudoscien'tific, redesign, sub'standard, un'necessary. In general, such prefixes result in a doubled consonant when the prefix-final and the stem-initial consonant are identical, e.g. un'necessary is pronounced with a double length [n:]. (This rule does not apply to in- and its variants, so, for example, i'llogical is pronounced with only a single [1].)

6.4. Secondary stress

When words have more than one syllable before or after the main stress, a general rhythmical pattern is often apparent, there being a tendency to alternate more prominent and less prominent syllables. Syllable made prominent in this way will retain a full vowel; additionally syllables before the primary stress will often receive the secondary stress involving pitch change.

If there is only one syllable before the primary stress, this is usually unstressed. E.g. a'pply, coricern, de'ceive etc. If there are two syllables before the primary stress, the first will often receive a secondary stress, e.g. yhodo'dendron, fnedteval, represent, jnagdzine. Indeed, primary stress shows a tendency to move to the position of the secondary stress, pro­ducing, for example, 'magazine in GA.

Where there are more than two syllables before the primary stress, a secondary stress will fall two or three syllables back according to the presence of a full vowel, e.g. inferiority, enthusiastically, but pircumlo'cution, ,characte'ristically. As with everything concerned with a word stress in English, all of this section should be taken as indicating tendencies rath­er than rules that are without exception.