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Re: USAGE: Stress in English

From:Shreyas Sampat <shreyas@...>
Date:Wednesday, February 25, 2004, 16:21
Mark J. Reed wrote:

>It's well-known that stress in English is not regular; in fact, it >cannot be, as it is technically phonemic - although there are relatively >few minimal pairs and they aren't universal. >
Not really. The patterns are just slightly difficult for nouns and verbs: unsuffixed verbs will count a final consonant as a syllable, and parse that way, while nouns will count a final C as a coda of the final syllable. That's why verb stresses are stable over the base, -ed forms, and -ing forms. There are several interacting regularities, but I don't think you can argue convincingly that stress is phonemic. -- Hell hath no fury like the vast robot armies of a woman scorned. Shreyas

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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>