Russian

Stress Pattern with a Secondary Stress Preceding Primary

1. Derivatives with Stress-Moving Suffixes

A secondary word stress appears before a primary one in polysyllabic derivative words under the influence of the English rhythm. Therefore, the secondary word stress in such words can be called rhythmic. It is found in words where suffixes change the position of the primary stress and place it either on the suffix itself or on the preceding syllable. The secondary word stress appears on the syllable which carried the primary stress in the original word leaving, as a rule, at least one unstressed syllable between the secondary and the primary stresses:

e'xam – eˌxami'nation;

'demonstrate – ˌdemon'stration;

'centre – ˌcentrali'zation;

ad'minister – adˌmini'stration.

Note that in both the secondary and the primary stressed syllables the vowels are of a full quality:

ˌphoto'graphic – /ˌfəʊtəˈɡræfɪk/;

ˌeco'nomical – /ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪkəl/.

Listen to the words and compare their stress-patterns:

The list of stress-carrying suffixes:

Study the chart and listen to the examples:

• Exercise 1

• Exercise 2*

     2. Derivatives with Meaningful Prefixes

The following prefixes are called meaningful because they have their own meaning that changes the meaning of the original word. These prefixes are always stressed.  Because the stem in such words also retains its primary stress, words with meaningful prefixes are double-stressed. Yet, the degree of the word stress carried by the prefix is disputed. On the one hand, it is secondary as words with meaningful prefixes, pronounced as one-word sentences, are seldom stressed with a nuclear tone on the prefix [9]. On the other hand, meaningful prefixes receive a contrastive nuclear stress in speech so often that some authors mark such words with two primary word stresses [7]. Such ambiguity may be caused by the fact that  the word stress on the prefix here is not rhythmic but semantic. Note, that in modern pronouncing dictionaries meaningful prefixes are marked with a secondary stress [6; 9].

Study the chart and Listen: 

• Exercise 3

Nouns with meaningful prefixes may have a different word stress pattern – the prefix carries a primary stress while the root loses a primary stress and has a secondary one. Thus, such nouns are similar in their accentual pattern to compound nouns.

Listen and compare:

• Exercise 4*

The prefix re- /ri:/ also has a meaning of its own which denotes 'again', but it can be confused with the prefix re- /rɪ/ that doesn't mean 'again'. The difference between these two prefixes is in their pronunciation and stressing:

re- (again) /ri:/ – stressed;

re-             /rɪ/ – unstressed.

Thus, some words beginning with the prefix re- may have the same spelling but a different stress pattern and meaning depending on what prefix re- is used.

Listen and compare:

recover (cover again)    /ˌri:ˈkʌvə/    or     recover (get well)     /rɪˈkʌvə/

recount (count again)    /ˌri:ˈkaʊnt/    or     recount (describe)     /rɪˈkaʊnt/

reform (form again)     /ˌri:ˈfɔːm/       or     reform (improve)     /rɪˈfɔːm/

remark (mark again)     /ˌri:ˈmɑːk/      or     remark (comment)    /rɪˈmɑːk/

resort (sort again)         /ˌri:ˈsɔːt/         or     resort (a place for rest) /rɪˈzɔːt/

resign (sign again)       /ˌri:ˈsaɪn/         or     resign (give up a job) /rɪˈzaɪn/

a)  The band hasn’t played together for years, but they’ve said they’ll ˌreˈform for the charity concert. (form again)

b) The government are going to reˈform health care. (improve)

• Exercise 5