English Pronunciation Tip of the Day
Tip 129
Category:
Stress
Author: JAM
Combining forms and stress
English has quite a few combining forms ending in <o>. These are used mainly in scientific and technical terms. Usually the main stress of the resulting word is on the second part of the compound and the combining form gets a secondary stress. Here are some examples:
| aeronautics | /%e@r@"nO:tIks/ |
| biotechnology | /%baI@Utek"nQl@dZi/ |
| cardiothoracic | /%kA:di@UT@"r{sIk/ |
| haemoglobin | /%hi:m@"gl@UbIn/ |
| isometric | /%aIs@"metrIk/ |
| neurophysiology | /%njU@r@U%fIzi"Ql@dZi |
| socio-economic | /%s@Usi@U%i:k@"nQmIk/ |
Notice that the o in some of the words can be pronounced /@/ and in others it can't. Any ideas why? The answer is that if the next syllable is the main stress then /@/ is OK (but not obligatory). If the next syllable is unstressed or bears a secondary stress, you can't have /@/.
Now look at these words:
| aerodrome | /"e@r@dr@Um/ |
| biosphere | /"baI@UsfI@/ |
| cardiogram | /"kA:di@Ugr{m/ |
| isobar | /"aIs@bA:/ |
| psychopath | /"saIk@p{T/ |
| sociolect | /"s@Usi@Ulekt/ |
These don't conform to the stress pattern above. But notice that in all of them, the second part (after the combining form) is only a single syllable. If this is the case, the combining form itself tends to get the main stress.