IOE English -Primary Stress Guidelines

This chapter gives 1 marks sure in the B.E. Entrance Exam.

Syllables:-

Syllables generally refer to the number of vowels present in a word.

1st syllable means the first vowel of the word

2nd syllable means the second vowel of the word and so on.

The important guidelines to find the primary stress of a word are as follows :-

1. If a word ends in -ain like certain, detain, maintain etc. The primary stress falls on the final syllable.

2. If a two syllable ( i.e. two vowels either monophthongs or diphthongs) word has -ate ending like dictate, pate, narrate etc. The primary stress falls on the final syllable.

3. If a three or more syllable word has -ate ending like educate, predicate, fortunate etc. The primary stress falls on the 3rd syllable from last.

4. If a three syllable word has -ator ending like dictator, predator, curator etc. The primary stress falls on the 2nd syllable from last.

5. If a 4 or more syllable word has -ator ending like agitator, allocator, coordinator etc. The primary stress falls on the 4th syllable from the end.

6. If a word has -ee , -eer, -een ending like beer, been, engineer, sixteen etc. The primary stress falls on the final or last syllable. But we have some exceptions i.e. Coffee, toffee, Jubilee have their primary stress in their first syllable and Committee has its primary stress in its 2nd syllable.

7. If a word has -ics, -ical ending like politics, geographical, Music etc. The primary stress falls on the syllables just before ics & ical.

8. If a word has vowel letter combination such io, iou, iu, ea, ei, .... etc The primary stress falls on the syllable just before the vowel letter combination.

9. If a word has prefix which doesnot has any meaning such as a-, be-, for- like again, before, forgive etc. The primary stress falls on the syllables just after those prefix or 2nd syllable.

10. If a word can be used as a noun or an adjective or a verb then, the primary stress falls on the first syllable in case of nouns and adjective but the primary stress falls on the final syllable if the given words is a verb.

11. If a word ends with -ette like brunette,burette , cassette etc have their primary stress in the final syllable but we have some common exceptions like Omlette and etiquette these words have their primary stress in the first syllable.

If the following guidelines are not applicable the following tips are to be used.

12. If a word has two syllables then in general it's primary stress lies in the first syllable but have some exceptions to this. Words hotel, motel, bamboo, shampoo, balloon, police, humane, support, success, succeed etc. have their primary stress in the final syllable or 2nd syllable.

13. If a word has three syllable in general their primary stress lies on first syllable but have some exceptions to this. Words understand, important, undergo have their primary stress on their final syllable or 3rd Syllable.

14. If a word has four or more syllable in general their primary stress lies on 3rd syllable from the end.

15. For reflexive pronouns like himself, herself, ourself etc. The primary stress falls on the final syllable.