Russian

Stress Pattern with a Primary Stress Preceding Secondary

This stress pattern is used only in compound nouns – nouns, formed of two stems in which the first stem is semantically more important and thus more prominent than the second one.

Сompound nouns are spelt either as one word (bedroom), or with a hyphen (dining-room), or as two separate words (bus stop). The exact spelling of a compound noun can be looked up in a dictionary.

Note that although the second stem in a compound noun is often marked as unstressed in dictionaries, especially if it is monosyllabic, it is always pronounced with a full-quality vowel that actually makes it equal to a secondary stress [4]. In this book we always mark the secondary stress to draw the students' attention to the fact that compound nouns have two full-quality vowels.

Listen to the words and repeat them after the speaker:

'airˌport

'bathˌroom

'bus ˌstop

'car ˌpark

'classˌroom

'footˌball

'girlˌfriend

'bus ˌstation

'dining-ˌroom

'hairˌdresser

'newsˌpaper

'post-ˌoffice

'sunˌglasses

'photoˌcopy

'railway ˌstation

'shop aˌssistant

po'lice ˌstation

com'puter ˌprogramme 

Note that if the first part of a compound noun is an adjective, both parts may be equally stressed.

Examples: 'milk 'shake, 'half-'length, 'middle-'class, 'upper-'class.

Listen to the words and compare their stress patterns:

The word stress pattern differentiates compound nouns from word combinations. In compound nouns the first stem is more prominent than the second one as it specifies the meaning of the second part of the noun, while in word combinations both words are equally important and, consequently, equally stressed.

Listen to the examples and compare the meaning and the stressing of the words in bold (words in capital letters are stressed):

I was born in that GREEN HOUSE.  (зеленый дом)                       

We grow out tomatoes in that GREENhouse. (парник)

I went to the shopping centre to buy myself a couple of COTTON SHIRTS. (рубашки из хлопка)

I think I’ve left my CAR keys in my HANDbag. (ключи от машины) (сумка)

They own a COTTON factory and several STEEL mills in South America. (хлопкоочистительный завод), (сталелитейный завод)

• Exercise 1

• Exercise 2*

• Exercise 3*

Many compound nouns are derived from double-stressed phrasal verbs. These nouns follow the stress pattern «primary stress + secondary»  as well.

Listen and compare:

I got the times MIXED UP.     –   There was a MIX-up over times. 

It’s important to WARM UP before exercise.  –  He hurt his ankle during the WARM-up.

The tennis match was WASHED OUT.   –  It was a WASH-out.

But: 'passer-'by.

•  Exercise 4