Knowing when to stress certain syllables and when not to is one of the keys to good English pronunciation.

IN the previous Exploring English column, comparisons were made between the way words are pronounced by British and American speakers.

The point was made that while “accent” accounts for much of the pronunciation contrast, the way the historic traditional rules of English pronunciation are applied also plays a significant, influential role as does the way words are broken into syllables.

To further demonstrate how the “traditional rules” and “syllabic break-up” factors can determine the pronunciation of numerous words, one only has to study the words cement and zebra.

When these words are split as cem/ent and zeb/ra, ie. after “cem” and “zeb”, both frontal syllables are “closed off” with a consonant.

The traditional rule teaches: “Closed syllables end in consonants and the vowel is usually short.”

Therefore, the “e” in “cem” and “zeb” should be sounded as a regular or short sound, the same as the “e” in “beg”.

In contrast, when the syllable break-up is ce/ment and ze/bra, that is, immediately after the first vowel — as the Americans do — then the vowel is pronounced as a “long” sound and says its own name as in “see”. Either syllabic break-up of these words is acceptable.

Determining where the syllabic breaks should occur usually can be simplified if it is remembered that:

(i) “Double consonants usually split”, eg. ham/mer, bar/rel, lad/der, but/ter, fun/nel.

(ii) “Blends usually begin with words and syllables”, eg. des/troy, ex/plode, el/e/phant, sub/scrib/ing.

(iii) Syllabic breaks occur after Prefixes and before Suffixes, eg. pro/pon/ent, dis/trib/u/tion.

Once the syllabic break-up has been determined, the task is to apply any other appropriate pronunciation rule.

For that reason, there is enormous value in new English language learners mastering the traditional pronunciation rules that were commonly applied 300 years ago.

Rules of the game

Having mastered the concept of breaking words into syllables, the next challenge is to know “which syllable or syllables to stress when speaking”.

Fortunately, there are traditional Stress Rules that apply 95% of the time.

However, the reason why the Stress Rules do not always apply is because of the 550,000+ words in today’s English language; almost half have been “borrowed” from other languages and in the process, the pronunciation has often been altered.

An example is the word colonel. In the Spanish-speaking world — countries like Spain and Mexico — the word makes sense when it is pronounced with the stress on each syllable, ie. as “col/on/el”.

In English, it is pronounced as “ker/nel” and many English learners question why.

Setting aside foreign-borrowed words that learners just have to learn to pronounce and then commit to memory, learning how to correctly pronounce most English words can be “discovered” by applying the historic, traditional rules.

Example: bouquet, chauffeur, quartz, cappuccino, guerrilla, negligee, debut, apartheid, kauri, ukulele, ghoul, etc.

An easy rule to remember teaches one how to correctly stress words that perform the function of Nouns and Verbs.

Consider the word, “record”, eg. “I will record what that witness says so that there is a record of the interview,” the police officer said.

Just as “N” comes before “V” in the alphabet, the syllabic stress in Nouns is placed early in a word, while in Verbs, the stress is usually later in the word.

While the rule particularly applies to two-syllabic words such as “survey, permit, address, increase, etc.”, it can apply to many multi-syllabic words such as “contribution” (a Noun) and “contribute” (a Verb).

When one knows this “rule”, it is not difficult to work out the correct pronunciation of “dis/tribution” and “dis/tribute” or “ob/ligation” and “o/blige”, etc.

To reiterate, this rule is especially applicable to the pronunciation of Nouns, eg. cof/fee, chim/ney, ac/tion, des/ert, pris/on, doc/u/ment, cin/e/ma, guar/an/tee, aud/i/ence, as well as to Proper Nouns, eg. Syd/ney, Lon/don, Mel/ak/a, Chi/na.

When the first syllable of a Noun form is “open”, ie. it ends in a vowel or the semi-vowel “y”, the first syllable is stressed.

However, it should be remembered that this final vowel will make its “long” sound, eg. pi/lot, cy/clone, ti/dal, to/tal, etc.

Thousands of words in English originate from Latin, Greek or French roots.

When this is the case, it is important to remember that the main stress is placed on the “root component” of the words, eg. in/fla/tion, in/vis/i/ble, e/val/u/a/tion, vo/cab/u/lar/y, ex/cav/a/tion, re/pent/ance.

The final stress-related factor to be considered this week is the issue of Secondary Stress.

To date, the focus has been on the main or Primary Stress in words with the emphasis on words that function as Nouns and Verbs.

Many words also have a second point of stress or emphasis.

The most common example of Secondary Stress is to be found in words that contain a final syllable that begins with member of the “ti” digraphic family such as “ti – si – ci – xi - sci – ce”.

Example: in/vest/i/ga/tion, sus/pen/sion, pol/i/ti/cian, un/con/scious, cru/ci/fi/xion, crus/ta/cean.

It is not always easy to decide where to place the pronunciation stress in a word.

In the case of Noun words with two syllables, even though it may not abide by the traditional rule, stress can be placed on both syllables and still sound okay, eg. ham/mer, bar/rel, gar/den, etc.

However, it is vitally important NOT to stress only the final syllable.

The next Exploring English column will focus on other historic, traditional rules that the 4S Methodology calls The Mnemonic Keys to Understanding Pronunciation.

n Keith Wright is the author and creator of the 4S Approach To Literacy and Language (4S) — a modern, innovative and proven method of accelerating the learning of English.

The 4S methodology and the associated Accelerated English Programme (AEP) mentioned in this fortnightly column are now being used internationally to enhance the English proficiency of people with different competency levels. E-mail contact@4Sliteracy.com.au for free PDF copies of 4S Superior English Communications and Pronouncing Nouns and Verbs.

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