Where to stress words in pronunciation
My son was researching the Medal of Honor, America鈥檚 highest military decoration, and told me that it is awarded for 鈥渃onspicuous gallantry and intrepidity.鈥� He pronounced 鈥渋ntrepidity鈥� as 鈥渋n-tre-pi-DI-ty,鈥� but that didn鈥檛 sound right, nor did 鈥渋n-TRE-pid-i-ty.鈥� It took me a while to hit on the actual pronunciation: 鈥渋n-tre-PID-i-ty,鈥� with the primary stress on the antepenultimate (the third from the last) syllable. I wondered, does English have a rule that, if I had known it, would have told me which syllable to emphasize?
In French, word stress is easy 鈥� emphasis always falls on the last syllable of a word. The Macedonian pattern is simple as well, with stress being placed on the antepenultimate syllable in multisyllabic words, and otherwise on the first syllable. If you are faced with planinarite (mountaineers), you simply count three from the end and you find the stress: 鈥減la-nin-AR-i-te.鈥� I studied Macedonian for a summer, and found this rule extremely helpful.
In English, things are more complicated. For words like intrepidity, it turns out, there is a rule. Multisyllabic words that end in cy, ty, phy, gy, and al have antepenultimate stress, as in 鈥淟O-gi-cal,鈥� 鈥済e-O-graph-y,鈥� and 鈥済e-o-GRAPH-i-cal.鈥� Of course there are exceptions 鈥� 鈥淟E-ni-en-cy鈥� 鈥� but for the most part this rule holds. There are many other guidelines of similar specificity and complexity, including these: Stress the penultimate syllable of words ending in ic (ti-TAN-ic); and stress the last syllable of words ending in ee, ese, and eer (vol-un-TEER).
But sometimes English word stress just isn鈥檛 predictable 鈥� 鈥渂a-NA-na鈥� versus 鈥淎N-i-mal,鈥� for example. This makes learning English pronunciation fiendishly complicated for nonnative speakers. Is it better to memorize dozens of highly specific rules and their exceptions, or just try to develop an intuitive sense of where words are stressed?
Stress isn鈥檛 only important for proper pronunciation, however 鈥� sometimes it actually distinguishes the meaning of words. English has many pairs of nouns and verbs that look the same but are stressed according to their category. We have 鈥淩E-cord鈥� (noun) and 鈥渞e-CORD鈥� (verb), 鈥淚N-sult鈥� (noun) and 鈥渋n-SULT鈥� (verb), 鈥淭RANS-port鈥� (noun) and 鈥渢rans-PORT鈥� (verb). You can probably see the pattern: Nouns are stressed on the first syllable, verbs on the second. This rule applies to around 170 pairs of homographs 鈥� words with the same spelling but different pronunciations and meanings. As with nearly everything in English, there are exceptions 鈥� 鈥渄e-MAND鈥� and 鈥淐OM-ment鈥� are pronounced the same whether as verbs or nouns.
Native speakers don鈥檛 usually need rules to figure out stress. We just know what sounds 鈥渞ight.鈥� When we鈥檙e faced with a word we鈥檝e read but never had聽 occasion to say out loud before, though, familiarity with some rules might come in handy.
