ENGLISH DEMYSTIFIER ACADEMY LECTURE NOTE

*STRESS.*

🧠
* Stress* is an aspect in the supra segmental phonology. It's the emphasis placed on words
or syllable. In word stress we say syllable is the prosodic feature of stress.

There are two types of stress and these are :

📍Word stress
📍Sentence /Emphatic stress.
The emphatic stress is simple and easier. It's just to look for option that doesn't have the
stressed word in the sentence.

Word stress can be divided into three:

📍Primary stress,
📍Secondary stress,
📍Weak stress.
🎓Primary stress is the stress that is more heard when pronounced. It refers to the syllable
more heard than others. It's often represented with upper stroke in transcription.

🎓Secondary stress refer to the syllable that is less heard and it's often represented with
lower stroke in transcription.

🎓Weak stress is known as Schwa stress. It's the stress that isn't really heard at all and do have
Schwa in pronunciation.

For the sake of your UTME we shall be dealing with Primary stress.
Shall we proceed?

* 🧠RULE 1*
*Part of speech stress rule.*

📍 The rule states that when a word is bi-syllabic(two syllable) and it belongs to any part of
speech. The part of speech it belongs to will determine the primary stress.

🎓When it is a noun or adjective, the primary stress will be on the first syllable.
🎓When it belongs to the verb or adverbial part of speech, the primary stress should be on the
second syllable.

*Examples*

REfuse(noun)

reFUSE(Verb)

INcrease (noun)

inCREASE(Verb)

CONvert (noun)

conVERT(Verb)

Hope this rule is clear?

* 🧠RULE 2*
*Prefix and Suffix stress rule*

📍 This rule states that Prefix and suffix are not stressed.
Examples :

🎓 enGAGE ~ment~
You can use this rule in exam. Immediately you delete the suffix(ment) you will be left with
engage.

Remember rule 1

*Engage* belongs to Verb part of speech and so would be stressed on second syllable since
it's bi-syllabic .

So the stress pattern will be *enGAGEment*

Compare this example under this rule to that in rule 2.

🎓Another example is disagreement. Below is the stress pattern:

The above is the right stress pattern following the rules...

Do you get it?

* 🧠RULE 3*
*Second to the last rule*

Words ending in : *ion, ic, ial, ian* have stress on the syllable before them. This means second
to the last syllable.

For easy remembering, just remember words that their suffixes start with "I or U" fall under this
category. You can as well remember through this sentence : Introduct *ion* of democrat *ic*
colon *ial* grammar *ian*
📍Examples
🎓eduCAtion
🎓coMMERcial
🎓preCIsion
🎓matheMAtics
_Hope this is understood?_

* 🧠RULE 4*
*Third to the last syllable stress rule*

This rule states that words ending in: *cal, ate, ty, al* are stressed on third to the last syllable.

Most words always which are more than two syllables fall under this category.

You can remember this rule using this sentence : *cal* culus *ate* *ty* pical *al* ien.

Most words that end in "y" falls under this category. Example are fy, gy, phy etc....

Examples are:

🎓coMMUnicate
🎓ecoNOmical
🎓eTERnity
🎓interNAtional
Kindly note that "ate" has another rule when it's two syllabic. I will explain this in one of the rules
later.
* 🧠RULE 5*
*First syllable stress.*

This rule states that words ending in "izm" and "ism" are stressed on the first syllable.

However, words which end in "ism/izm" with prefix will have stress on the second syllable
because prefix are not stressed.

Examples:

📍FA-vou-ri-ti-sm
📍JOUR-na-li-sm
📍SO-cia-li-sm
_Hope this is clear?_

* 🧠RULE 6*
*Schwa stress rules*

Schwa is the weak stress in word stress. When the primary stress according to the listed rules
is to be on a Schwa transcriptional syllable or sound, then the primary stress moves to the
syllable before or after it depending on the position of the syllable with Schwa transcription.

Examples:

a-GO /əˈɡəʊ/

a-LONE /əˈləʊn/

DOC-tor /ˈdɒktə/

FA-mous /ˈfeɪməs/

_Hope this is clear?_

* 🧠RULE 7*
*"ate" stress rule.*

This rule states that when "ate" ends a word and it's of two syllable, the second syllable (i.e the
syllable with "ate") should be stressed.

Examples :

📍dic-TATE
📍re-LATE
📍fru-STRATE
Kindly note that this rule only works with words ending with "ate" which are of two syllables. But
when the syllables are more than two, rule 4 must be considered (i.e third to the last)

Hope this is clear?

* 🧠RULE 8*
*"ish" stress rule*

This rule states that when words of two or three syllables end with "ish", the stress must be
placed on the syllable before "ish"

Examples:

📍NOU-rish
📍FLOU-rish
📍FOO-lish
📍e-STA-blish
📍FUR-nish
📍mal-NOU-rished
 🧠
: * RULE 9*

*"able/ible" stress rule.*

This rule states that words ending with "able/ible" are stressed on the _fourth or third_ to the
last syllable depending on other rules of stress applied as the case of the word maybe.

Examples :

📍CHE-ri-sha-ble
The above is stressed on fourth to the last by using two rules.

First, using rule 2 (prefix and suffix), "cherishable" is the same as " cherish + ~able~ "

Next is the rule of "ish" (rule 8) cherish becomes "CHErish". So the correct stress pattern
becomes CHE-ri-sha-ble.

📍re-JEC-ta-ble /re-JEC-ti-ble
The above is third to the last by using just two rules.

First, using rule 2 (prefix and suffix), "rejectable" becomes "reject + ~able"

Now back to rule 1 (part of speech rule), "reject" belongs to verb part of speech and thus should
be stressed on second syllable. "reject" becomes "reJECT." The main word becomes "reJEC-ta-
ble."

Note: To always attain at the right answer, delete the suffix (able) and base on the word using
other rules I have taught you.

_Hope this is clear?_

🧠
: * RULE 10*

*"ure" stress rule*

Examples :

📍ex-PEN-di-ture
📍FUR-ni-ture
🧠
: * RULE 11*

*"al" exception stress rule.*

If you remember that "al" falls under third to the last syllable (rule 4), you would see that trying it
for some words won't work out. This is the more reason I need to make the exception clear just
as I explained the exception for two syllable words ending with "ate".

The exception rule for "al" states that when "ment" comes before "al" then "ment" should be
stressed. For instance :

📍frag-MENT-al
📍en-vi-ron-MENT-al
📍De-part-MENT-al
📍fun-da-MENT-al
📍seg-MENT-al
_Hope the above exception is clear?_

* 🧠RULE 12*
*"ism/izm" exception stress rule.*

As early as er stated in rule 8 that words ending in ism/izm are stressed on the first syllable,
there is an exception to it.
The exception rule states that when "ism" is a suffix ending a word and has "ion + al" before it,
the rule applicable is fourth to the last which is the syllable before "ion"

For instance :

📍pro-FE-ssion-al-ism.
In the above, the first syllable isn't stressed because if you apply the rule of prefix and suffix
(rule 2), the remain word becomes "profession" Now apply second to the lass syllable rule (rule
3) because ends in "ion" Then the complete stress pattern becomes : pro-FE-ssion-al-ism.

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