Two Stress Pattern
In many polysyllabic words (compounds or derivatives) we observe more than one stress within a word. The phonetic degree and the phonological status of these stresses might be either equal (then we deal with two primary stresses within a word), or not equal (then one of the stresses is secondary). For more information about it see Realization of Word Stress in Speech.
Note, that the secondary word stress may not always be marked in dictionaries, especially when it follows the primary one. Yet, all dictionaries show a full-quality vowel in such syllables which actually presupposes giving greater phonetic prominence to them in comparison with unstressed syllables. Thus, learners of English are recommended to pronounce syllables with full-quality vowels as more or less prominent [7]. For the teaching purposes in this practice book we mark the secondary stress on those syllables which have a full-quality vowel but no primary stress.
Depending on the degree of word stress and the succession of the degrees three word stress patterns are distinguished for double-stressed words:
words with two primary stresses;
words with the secondary stress preceding the primary one;
words with the primary stress preceding the secondary one.