Disyllables

1. According to the recessive tendency in most disyllabic nouns and adjectives stress falls on the initial syllable: accent, concert, murmur, motor.

2. Disyllabic verbs may have stress both on the initial: render, follow, enter, open, swallow and on the last syllable: endow, allow, assist, arrive, ignore. In most disyllabic verbs ending in:-ate, -ise (ize), -ite, -fy, -ny stress falls on the last syllable: dictate, surprise, unite, defy, deny.

3. In disyllabic words with a prefix of no special meaning the second syllable is stressed. This rule mostly affects verbs: forgive, pretend, impart, intend, forget.

4. Disyllabic French borrowings retain the stress on the last syllable: police, regime, machine.

5. The recessive tendency in stressing words is characteristic of words of Anglo-Saxon origin, but this tendency has also influenced many borrowings: differ, suffer, conquer, offer, profit, rescue.

Polysyllables

1. According to the rhythmic tendency stress in polysyllabic words falls on the third syllable from the end: intensity, positive, comedy, palatal, derelict, opportune, insolent. Exceptions: mimosa, disaster, umbrella, tobacco, manifesto, potato, October, November, December, museum, committee, equator, September, however, eleven, example, enquiry.

2. The rhythmic tendency also affects verbs ending with suffixes: -ate, -fy, -ize(ise): agitate, deviate, appreciate, personify, qualify, glorify, apologize, monopolize, subsidize.

In verbs of recent origin the stress is on the initial syllable: regularize, characterize, hospitalize.

3. In words with more than four syllables we very often find the influence of both rhythmical and the recessive tendencies: indivisible, inefficiency, phonological, physiology.

4. In rapid colloquial speech the two tendencies coincide as one of the vowels is elided: territory, dictionary, literature, secretary, laboratory, temperature.

5. The rhythmical tendency remains a strong one and it affects the stress patterns of a large number of words in Modern English. In some polysyllabic words there is a tendency to avoid a long succession of weak syllables. As a result there appears a stress shift with a rhythmic alteration of stressed and unstressed syllables. This tendency is clearly evident in the new pronunciation of the following words: ‘controversy – con’trovers, ‘hospitable – hos’pitable, ‘kilometre – ki’lometre.

6. According to the retentive tendency the stress of the parent word is often retained in the derivatives as a secondary stress: regular – regularity, demonstrate – demonstration, personal – personality.

Note that there should be at least one unstressed syllable between the secondary and the primary stresses: explain – explanation, prepare – preparation, define –definition. In the mentioned above examples the secondary stress is shifted to the left.

Words with suffixes

1. Accent-attracting suffixes (suffixes carrying primary stress themselves).

-ique – unique, technique;	-ese – Portuguese;	-ette – cigarette;
-ee/ier – refugee, referee;	-eer – mountaineer;	-esque – picturesque.

Also suffix -ate in dissyllabic verbs: migrate, dictate.

2. Accent-neutral suffixes (suffixes that do not affect stress placement).

-able – comfort-comfortable;	-like – bird-birdlike;
-age – anchor-anchorage;	-less – power-powerless;
-al – refuse-refusal;	-ly – hurried-hurriedly;
-en – wide-widen;	-ment – punish-punishment;
-ful – wonder-wonderful;	-ness – yellow-yellowness;
-fy – glory-glorify;	-ous – poison-poisonous.
-ing – amaze-amazing;	-wise – other-otherwise;
-ish – devil-devilish;	-y (ie) – fun-funny;
-ism – alcohol – alcoholism;	-er – lead-leader;
-ist – separate-separatist;	-ess – lion-lioness;
-ize (ise) – circular-circularize;	-acy – celibate-celibacy