Movement of stress to an earlier syllable

From the ultimate syllable to the initial syllable in words of two syllables:

^Iacute, ^Idespite, ^Iextent, ^IJuly, ^Irecord (verb), ^Isuccess, ^Isuspense, ^Itowards, ^Iunlike.

From the ultimate syllable to the penultimate syllable in words of three syllables:

Ca ^Iribbean, Eu ^Iropean, Tan ^Izania.

From the penultimate syllable to the initial syllable in words of three syllables:

^Iagenda, ^Iagreement, ^Iassociate (adj/noun), ^Iattorney, ^Ideposit (noun), ^Idiploma, ^Iinsurance, ^Iopponent, ^Iphonetics, ^Iumbrella.

From the penultimate syllable to the antepenultimate syllable in words of four syllables:

a ^»dolesence, a ^»postolic, con ^»valescence, con ^»valescent, scientific [sa ^Ijantifik].

From the last syllable to the initial syllable in words of three syllables:

^Iexpertise, ^Icigarette, ^Ireferee.

From the antepenultimate syllable to the pre-antepenultimate (initial) syllable in words of four syllables:

^Iappropriate (adj), ^Iimpossible, ^Iincredible, ^Iirrelevant, ^Iirregular.

Stress placement in CamE is not random: it is predictable from a number of parameters which include the phonetic factor, the morphological factor, the word class, whether a noun is a common noun or a forename; several factors can also combine to generate a stress pattern.

One illustration of the phonetic factor is that words ending with rhyme /i (C)/ tend to be stressed on the final syllable as in aun ^Itie, cur ^Iry, Ira ^Iqui, Israe ^Ili, Pakista ^Ini, pet ^Ity, se ^Imi - (semi-final), Soma ^Ili, sure ^Ity; Bap ^Itist, bis ^Icuit, spe ^Icies, ten ^Inis, ty ^Ipist. Words ending with a final /n/ also tend to be stressed finally, as in cara ^Ivan, harmat ^Itan, plan ^Itain, cello ^Iphane, hurri ^Icane, Ama ^Izon, car ^Iton, cou ^Ipon, mara ^Ithon, mo ^Iron, cy ^Iclone, hor ^Imone, o ^Izone, bari ^Itone; and there is an even greater predilection for final stress in words ending in /in/, e.g. aspi ^Irin, bulle ^Itin, gan ^Igrene, hy ^Igiene, jave ^Ilin, para ^Ifin, penicil ^Ilin, tarpau ^Ilin. A further illustration of the phonetic factor in stress placement is that consonant clusters tend to attract stress to a later syllable, as in ancestor, calendar, comment (verb), cy ^Ilinder, or ^Ichestra, Pro ^Itestant.

The morphological factor refers to the fact that a large number of affixes have predictable and stable stress patterns. For example, the negative prefix is almost systematically self-stressed; e.g. ^Iillegal, ^Iimpossible, ^Iimmature, ^Iirrelevant. The following suffixes are self-stressed -ative, (e.g. cumu ^Ilative, ten ^Itative), - atory (expla ^Inatory, prepa ^Iratory), -ature (candi ^Idature, legis ^Ilature), -cide (homi ^Icide, pesti ^Icide), -itive (compe ^Ititive, repe ^Ititive), -land (Nether ^Ilands, New-Zea ^Iland, Switzer ^Iland), -man (fire ^Iman, gentle ^Iman), -oir(e) (me ^Imoire, reser ^Ivoir), -phone (Anglo ^Iphone, tele ^Iphone). The following suffixes attract stress to the preceding syllable (they are referred to in Simo Bobda (1994, 1997) as pre-stressed One (PS1) suffixes): -age (pa ^Irentage, vaga ^Ibondage), -an (cosmopo ^Ilitan, dio ^Icesan), -ary (le ^Igendary, pla ^Inetary), -al (elec ^Itrical, pas ^Itoral), -ism (bilingu ^Ialism, tri ^Ibalism), -ist (dra ^Imatist, poly ^Igamist), -ous (moun ^Itainous, volu ^Iminous). A more comprehensive analysis of the stress property of affixes can be found in Simo Bobda (1994).

The word class factor can be illustrated by the fact that in nouns, rather than in verbs for example, stress tends to be established earlier in the word, as in ^Iadvice (contrast ad ^Ivise), ^Iapplause (contrast ap ^Iplaud), ^Iexchange (n) (contrast ex ^Ichange (verb)), ^Iconstraint (noun) (contrast cons ^Itraint (verb)); further examples of backward nominal stress are ^Iabyss, ^Icanoe ([^Ikenu]), ^Iacumen, ^Iarena, ^Iassassin, ^Idiploma ^Ilumbago, ^Iumbrella.

English forenames have a greater predilection for forward stress than common nouns. The multitude of forenames with forward stress in CamE include A ^Igatha, Chris ^Itopher, Jes ^Isica, Jo ^Inathan, Pa ^Imela, Fer ^Idinand. Further evidence for the predilection of forenames to have forward stress is provided by the fact that words like comfort and prudence which can be both a common noun and a forename have backward stress (as in RP) in their common noun form ( ^Icomfort, ^Iprudence) and forward stress in their forename form (Com ^Ifort, Pru ^Idence).

Illustrations of the combination of factors for stress placement include the fact that verbs ending in obstruents are almost systematically stressed on the final syllable, as in chal ^Ilenge, eli ^Icit, embar ^Irass, exhi ^Ibit, hi ^Ijack, inter ^Ipret, kid ^Inap, ran ^Isack (combination of the phonetic and word class factors). Another illustration is the fact that the final rhyme /i (C)/ and the fact that the following items are forenames both combine to yield final stress: Be ^Icky, Jes ^Isie, Lu ^Icy, Nel ^Ily, Sam ^Imy; A ^Ilice, Do ^Iris, Sal ^Ily. Final stress is even more systematic when /C/ is a nasal, as in Cathe ^Irine, Jacque ^Iline, Jose ^Iphine.