Lesson · Word Stress · Endings

Endings That Pull the Stress

An ending can fix where the strong part goes, whatever the word was before. Before -tion and -ic it is the part just before the ending. Before -ical, -ity, -ate and -ize it is the third part from the end. Counted on the 2,800 words, six of these rules miss no more than one word each, and the last is right for two words in three.

Open the interactive lesson Practice

-tion, -sion part before it 151 of 152 -ic part before it 28 of 28 -ical, -ity third from end 16, 27 -ate, -ize third from end 36, 13 -ee the ending itself 8 of 12

Counted on the 2,800 words

Core ideas

What this lesson establishes

Three ideas. The first is the surprise.

An ending can move the strong part

Educate is strong on its first part. Add -tion and the push moves to the part before the ending: education. The word before the ending does not decide. The ending does.

Each ending has its place, counted from the end

Before -tion, -sion and -ic the strong part is the one just before the ending. Before -ical, -ity, -ate and -ize it is the third part from the end, with two parts after it. Counting from the end works because the word can be any length.

A rule this good is still a rule, so read the misses

Television is the one miss for -sion, and characterize the one for -ize. The -ee rule is weaker, and its four misses show why: an ending can be spelled the same and not carry the push.

The material

The words that break the rules

Four of the rules miss no word, two miss one word each, and the rule for -ee misses four.

The first lesson of this course put the strong part by the class of the word. A word with an ending is different. The ending itself says where the strong part goes, and it can move the push away from where it was in the word you started with.

The rules

-tion and -sion: the part just before the ending. Station, education.
-ic: the part just before the ending. Basic, economic.
-ical: the third part from the end. Chemical, political.
-ity: the third part from the end. Ability, community.
-ate, for a verb of three or more parts: the third part from the end. Celebrate, operate.
-ize, and the spelling -ise, for a word of three or more parts: the third part from the end. Realize, organize.
-ee, and -eer, -ese and -ette: the ending itself. Agree, engineer.

How often each rule is right

Counted on this page against the dictionary, the rule for -tion and -sion is right for 151 of 152 words, 99.3%. The rule for -ic is right for 28 of 28, -ical for 16 of 16, -ity for 27 of 27 and -ate for 36 of 36. The rule for -ize is right for 13 of 14, 92.9%. The table reads the spelling, so the 14 include five words spelled -ise: advertise and compromise, which are built with the ending, and exercise, enterprise and otherwise, which are not. All five follow the pattern anyway.

Each rule applies only where the word is long enough for the rule to make sense. The table sets aside -ate words that are not verbs, such as accurate and candidate, and words of fewer than three parts, such as create, date and private. It also sets aside city, the one word in -ity with only two parts. It says why beside each one.

The two misses

Television has four parts and is strong on the first. The rule asked for the third, the part before -sion, and some British speakers do say it there; the American reading does not. Characterize has four parts and is strong on the first, and the rule asked for the second, the third from the end. The word is built on character, which is strong on its first part, and the longer word keeps the push of its base. Both are single words to learn by name.

The weaker rule, -ee

The rule for -ee reads the last strong part the dictionary marks, and asks for it on the ending. Counted on this page it is right for 8 of 12 words, 66.7%. Nine short words are set aside because they have only one part and there is nothing to choose: see, free, tree and six more. One of the nine is cheese, the only word in -ese on the list, so that ending is named in the rule and never scored.

The four misses are coffee, committee, employee and refugee. In all four the dictionary's first reading gives the ending no push at all: the -ee is said like the -y of happy. Coffee and refugee are strong on the first part, committee and employee on the second. Many speakers do put the push on the ending of employee and refugee, and for refugee that is the usual British reading, but the dictionary's first reading is the one the page scores. So a spelling in -ee does not always carry the push; the rule works for agree, degree and engineer and fails for these four.

Two limits. The sounds are American, from the dictionary's first reading of each word. And the rules say where the push goes, not what an ending adds to the meaning.

Interactive

Where the strong part falls

Each rule reads a word's class or ending; the dictionary says which part is strong

the rule—

words scored—

the rule is right—

share right—

wrong—

the words it gets wrong—

words said both ways—

weak parts with the flat vowel—

the flat vowel with r—

the vowel of sit—

the vowel of see—

Where the sounds come from

Every sound, part count and strong part here is read from the first pronunciation in CMUdict, the Carnegie Mellon University Pronouncing Dictionary, which records American speech. Its licence asks that this notice travel with anything made from it:

Copyright (C) 1993-2015 Carnegie Mellon University. All rights reserved.

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This work was supported in part by funding from the Defense Advanced
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companies of the Carnegie Mellon Sphinx Speech Consortium. We acknowledge
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Method

Placing the strong part in a word with an ending

To place it in a word you have not heard, do this.

Look at the ending, not the front of the word

The ending decides. Do not say the word before the ending and carry its push forward.

Find the ending's rule

-tion, -sion, -ic: the part just before the ending. -ical, -ity, -ate, -ize: the third part from the end. -ee: the ending itself.

Count back from the end

Ability has four parts: a, bil, i, ty. The third from the end is bil.

Say it with the push there, and the other parts weak

Then check by saying the word the other way. The wrong one sounds foreign at once.

Check the short list of misses

Television and characterize have their own push, and so do four words in -ee.

Check yourself

Score 0 / 0

Choose the answer you can justify.

Moving the strong part with an ending

Each line takes a word, adds an ending, and says where the strong part goes.

educate 3 parts strong: the first education 4 parts strong: the third able 2 parts strong: the first ability 4 parts strong: the second celebrate 3 parts strong: the first

Education has four parts and the rule for -tion asks for the part just before the ending, which is the third. Ability has four parts and the rule for -ity asks for the third from the end, which is the second.

Celebrate has three parts, and the third from the end is the first. The same rule gives a different part in a word of a different length, which is why the count is from the end.

Common mistakes

Thinking the stress of photograph stays in photographyIt does not. Photograph is strong on its first part and photography on its second. An ending can move the push, and this lesson has seven endings that do. Each one is counted.

Counting from the front of the wordA rule such as the third part gives the wrong part in a word of four. Education has the push on its third part, ability on its second. Count from the end, where the ending is.

Thinking -ee works like the othersThe other six endings leave the push before them. The -ee rule puts it on the ending, as in agree and engineer. It is also the weakest of the seven.

Check your understanding

✓

Finish when you can place the strong part in a word that ends in -tion, -ic, -ical, -ity, -ate, -ize or -ee without hearing it first.

You should be able to say, for each of these endings, which part is strong, read each rule's score off the table, and say why a word is on its list of misses.

Note: A strong part that moves often leaves the part it left with no clear vowel. The first part of able has a clear vowel; in ability it has the flat sound. Not always: the first part of educate keeps a smaller beat and its clear vowel in education. The last lesson of this course is about what a weak part is said as.