Word stress

Word stress is clearly the aspect of suprasegmental phonology of CamE which has received the greatest scholarly attention, and about which we know most. Research shows that CamE has truly revolutionized the stress pattern of English. Indeed, thousands of words are stressed differently from the patterns in native Englishes, and the frequency of occurrence of new (local) forms very often reach 100% (see, for example Simo Bobda 1994). In fact, studies have shown that even teachers and university professors of English, in the most careful speaking style, find it almost impossible to change to im ^Ipossible, pro ^Ifessor, a ^Icute, suc ^Icess, dis ^Itribute, lieu ^Itenant, pre ^Iparatory, se ^Imester (from their usual ^Iimpossible, ^Iprofessor, ^Iacute, ^Isuccess, distri ^Ibute, ^Ilieutenant, prepa ^Iratory, ^Isemester).

Taking the RP pattern as the point of reference, the following data show some stress peculiarities in CamE, illustrating the movement of stress to a later syllable, and to an earlier syllable.