Lexical stress

The rules for stress assignment in Fijian are not entirely agreed upon. In many cases lexical stress is predictable in that it always falls on the penultimate mora, i.e. the penultimate syllable, if the vowel in the last syllable is short, and on the first part of the long vowel in the last syllable if the vowel is long. However, this appears to be true only for the last stress in the word, any preceding stress is unpredictable. In words with more than one stress, it is not always clear which is primary and which secondary.

Since in Standard English lexical stress is unpredictable, lexical stress patterns do not coincide with those in either Pure, or sometimes even Modified, Fiji English. Syllables which are unstressed in Standard English are often stressed in Fijian English, while Standard English stressed syllables are often realized in Fijian English with less stress or none. Examples from our data include: cholesterol > ['kɒle,strɒl], amicable > [,ε'mikabɐl]. We found this to be especially the case with words beginning with unstressed con- in Standard English. This element very often receives a primary stress in Fijian English, e.g. considerate > ['kɒn,sidɐret] , continue > ['kɒn,tinu] , convinced ['kɒn,vinst].