UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE LOJA

FACULTAD DE LA EDUCACIÓN, EL ARTE Y LA COMUNICACIÓN

CARRERA DE PEDAGOGÍA DE LOS IDIOMAS NACIONALES Y
EXTRANJEROS

ORAL AND WRITTEN EXPRESSION I

PRACTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL LEARNING

WEEK 4
Student’s Name: Nelly Gueledel
Cycle: 1st
Activity: Search information about Word Stress.
Date: November 9th, 2921

Word Stress
Word stress is the emphasis we place in a specific syllable of a word when pronouncing
it. Some longer words may have more than one ‘strong syllables’, but one of them tends
to stand out more than the other. They are referred to as primary and secondary stress,
the former being the strongest. Basically, stressing means to emphasize a sound.
 RULES FOR STRESSING

 One word has only one stress.

 We can only stress vowels, not consonants.
 Stress on first syllable
o Most 2-syllable nouns
Examples:
CARton
CHIna

o Most 2-syllable adjectives

Examples:
HAPpy
RAIny

 Stress on last syllable

o Most 2-syllable verbs
Examples:
reLAX
reCEIVE
 o Most 2-syllable prepositions
Example:
beTWEEN

 Stress on penultimate syllable

o Words ending in –ic
Examples:
geoLOGic
iCOnic

o Words ending in -sion and –tion

Examples:
teleVIsion
nuTRItion

 Stress on ante-penultimate syllable

o Words ending in -cy, -ty, -phy and –gy
Examples:
deMOcracy
CLArity
dependaBIlity
phoTOgraphy
ALlergy

o Words ending in –al

Example:
NAUtical

 Compound words
o For compound nouns, the stress is on the first part.
Example:
FOOTball

o For compound adjectives, the stress is on the second part.

Example:
Rock-SOlid

o For compound verbs, the stress is on the second part.

Example:
overFLOW
 For three-syllable words ending with the suffixes er or ly, the stress is placed
on the first syllable.
Examples:
EAsier
ORderly

 Words that use the suffix ade, ee, ese, eer, que, ette, or oon have the primary
stress actually placed on the suffix.
Examples:
ade: lemoNADE
ee: aGREE
eer: sightSEER
ese: JapanESE
ette: cassETTE
que: unIQUE
oon: afterNOON

 For reflexive pronouns the second syllable usually takes the stress.
Examples:
mySELF
ourSELVES

 Some words in English can be both a noun and a verb. In those cases, the
noun has its word stress on the first syllable, and with the verb, the stress
falls on the second syllable.
Example:
PREsent(n) / preSENT(V)
 BILIOGRAPHY

Essberger,J. (2020). Word Stress Rules. EnglishCLUB.

https://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/word-stress-rules.htm

Q-Admin. (2020). English Word Stress is No Stress if You Follow These Simple

Rules. Q.language. https://www.qlanguage.com.hk/english-word-stress-rules/

Quynh, N. (2017). 8 English Word Stress Rules to Promote Clear Communication.

FluentU. https://www.fluentu.com/blog/english/english-word-stress/