Page 577 - Practical English Usage 3ed - Michael Swan, Oxford

usually has to learn the stress pattern of a word along with its meaning, spelling and pronunciation. Examples:
Stressed on first syllable:
AFter, CApital, HAPpen, EXercise, EAsy
Stressed on second syllable:
insTEAD, prONOUNCE, aGREEment, parTIcularly
Stressed on third syllable:
enterTAIN, underSTAND, concenTRAtion
The stressed syllable of a word is the one that can carry an intonation movement (see 555 below).
Many short phrases also have a fixed stress pattern.
front DOOR (not FRONT door) LNing room (not living ROOM)
Related words can have different stress patterns.
to inCREASE an INcrease
PHotograph phOTOgrapher photOGRAphic
A good dictionary will show how words and common phrases are stressed. 3 variable stress
Some words have variable stress. In these, the stress is at or near the end when the word is spoken alone, but it can move to an earlier position when the word is in a sentence, especially if another stressed word follows. Compare:
- afterNooN (stress at the end)
It's timefor my AFternoon SLEEP. (stress at the beginning) - JapanEsE
JApanese cooking - nineTEEN
The year NINEteen 1WENty
Many short phrases - for instance, two-word verbs - have variable stress.
- - -
Their marriage broke UP.
Money problems BROKE up their marriage. DositDOWN.
She SATdown and cried.
It's dark BLUE.
a DARK blue SUIT
4 stress and pronunciation
Unstressed syllables nearly always have one of two vowels: /1/ (in unstressed prefixes written with e, like de-, re-, pre-, ex-) or /a/ (in other cases). Compare the first syllables in the following pairs of words:
- pREference (j'prefransj) preFER (jprI'f3:(r)/)
- EXpert (j'eksp3:tj) exPERience (/Ik'spIarlansj)
- cONfident (j'knnfldant/) conFUSED (/kan'fju:zdf)
- PARticle (/'pa:tIklj) parTIcular (jpa'tIkjala(r)!)
speech (1): stress and rhythm 554
Many short words (mostly pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and auxiliary verbs) have two quite different pronunciations: a normal 'weak' unstressed form, and a 'strong' form used when the word has special stress. (For details, see 616.)
I was (jwazj) herefirst. - No you weren't. - Yes I was (jwnzj). ~
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