Do you have trouble deciding where to stress syllables in words?  Did you know that 72% of word families keep the same strong stress on the base syllable even when prefixes and suffixes are added to the word?  Take for example the word care. When we add suffixes to the base word, the word “care” retains the stress:

CAREful
CAREless
CAREfree

But in 28% of the word families, stress does shift from place to place when you add a suffix.  The good news is that there are only four suffixes when a shift occurs.  These four suffixes include –al, -ity, -tion and –ic.  Let’s take a look at some of the words with shifting stress.   The all caps letters are the stressed syllable.

AcCOUNT
AcCOUNTable
AcCOUNTancy
AcCOUNTant

Notice how the stress is on the second syllable.  When I add –ity, the stress shifts to the syllable before the suffix: AccountaBIlity.

Here is another example:

CHARacter
CHARacterize
CHARacterless

The stress is on the first syllable in each word.  But when I add the suffix –ic,

“CharacterIStic,” the syllable stress shifts to the syllable before the suffix –ic.  Let’s do another one:

CALculate
CALculator
CALculated

Can you hear the primary stress on the first syllable?  Listen as I add –tion:  CalcuLAtion

Now, the syllable stress in this example shifted to the syllable before the suffix -tion

This is what you can expect with these suffixes:  -ity, -tion, -ic:  Stress the syllable immediately preceding the suffix.  If the suffix is –al, you will stress the syllable two syllables before the suffix:

ARchitect
ArchiTECtural

To make things confusing and of course, in English we like to do that, sometimes it shifts twice (but rarely)

ADAPT
ADAPtable
ADAPter

Here comes the shift…

AdapTAtion
AdaptaBIlity

Is this confusing?  I understand! Would you like to learn more about stress in syllables and words?Join our online Stressing Out membership class and learn about this in more detail so that you become an expert at correctly stressing words!