In a word of two parts, one part is said stronger than the other. Which one is not luck. A noun of two parts is strong on the first part, and a verb of two parts is strong on the second. The table scores both rules: each is right for about nine words in ten. Forty-nine words are both, and are said both ways.
Core ideas
Three ideas. The third one explains the lists of misses.
Say money slowly. The first part is longer, louder and higher than the second. That is the strong part. Every word of two or more parts has one, and the other parts are weak. A dictionary marks it, so the page can check any rule about it.
A noun of two parts is strong on the first part: the first part of money or action. A verb of two parts is strong on the second: the second part of decide or believe. You do not learn each word. You ask what kind of word it is.
Many common words are a noun and a verb at once, such as answer and water. For them the rule has nothing to say, because it needs one class. The table scores only the words that have one class, and keeps the words that have both on a list of their own.
The material
The noun rule misses 24 words of 231, the verb rule 16 of 150 and the adjective rule 12 of 47. The words sort into a few kinds.
Say money. Then say decide. Both have two parts, and in each one part is stronger. In money it is the first. In decide it is the second. A listener uses the strong part to find the word, so a student who puts it in the wrong place is often not understood, even when every sound in the word is right.
A part is one beat of a word. Money has two, decide has two and tomorrow has three. In every word of two or more parts, one part is said longer, louder and higher than the others. This course calls it the strong part. A pronouncing dictionary, a book that says how every word is said, marks it, and the page uses one.
The lab takes the words of two parts that the build step found to be only a noun, only a verb or only an adjective, and checks each against the dictionary. Counted on this page, the noun rule is right for 207 of 231 words, 89.6%. The verb rule is right for 134 of 150, 89.3%. The adjective rule is right for 35 of 47, 74.5%.
Nine in ten is a good rule for a thing you do in every sentence. Three in four for adjectives is a weaker one, and the lab says so. Which words are only a noun, only a verb or only an adjective was decided once, from a printed word list, and is not on the page. The words that have more than one class, such as answer, are not scored, and the setting called the words set aside shows them.
The noun rule says first, and these are said with the push somewhere else. They sort into three kinds.
The verb rule says second. Ten of the 16 are verbs whose second part is a weak ending: alter, differ, enter, frighten, govern, listen, reckon, strengthen, suffer and threaten. Say them and the second part is only a flat sound and a consonant, too light to carry the push, so it stays on the first. The other six are argue, injure, license, locate, marry and premise. Argue, injure and marry also end in a light second part. License and premise are nouns first and verbs second, and keep the noun's push. Locate is said both ways, and the dictionary's first reading is the American one. The last lesson of this course is about the flat sound.
The adjective rule says first, and every one of its 12 misses begins with a front piece that takes no push. Six begin with a- or un-: afraid, alive, ashamed, aware, unclear and unlike. The other six begin with a front piece that came with the word from Latin: distinct, intense, precise, remote, severe and toward. When a two-part adjective starts with a piece like these, the push is on the second part, and the rule for adjectives is best read as: first, unless the word begins with a front piece.
The lab also lists 49 words that the build step found to be both a noun and a verb, and for which the dictionary gives two readings, strong on different parts. They include address, contract, increase, object, permit, present, produce, project, protest, record, refuse, subject and survey. Take present: a present is strong on the first part, and to present on the second. Say each one in a sentence, and check yourself by asking which class you meant.
Two limits. The sounds are American, from the dictionary's first reading of each word, and a British speaker may put the push elsewhere in a few of them. And the rule tells you where the strong part is, not what the word means.
Interactive
Each rule reads a word's class or ending; the dictionary says which part is strong
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. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. The contents of this file are deemed to be source code. 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. This work was supported in part by funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation of the United States of America, and by member companies of the Carnegie Mellon Sphinx Speech Consortium. We acknowledge the contributions of many volunteers to the expansion and improvement of this dictionary. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY NOR ITS EMPLOYEES BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
Method
Four steps, then a check.
Say the word slowly and tap once for each beat. Money has two. If the word has one part, there is nothing to choose.
A thing, or an action? I need advice uses a noun. I will believe it uses a verb.
Action, brother, country. Accept, agree, explain.
Record is strong on the first part as a noun and on the second part as a verb. The table lists 49 words like it.
Each miss has a reason, and the reasons are below.
Name the class, apply the rule, and check the table. The last word is one of the 24 the noun rule misses.
Money and decide are the usual case. The rule says where the strong part is, and the dictionary agrees.
Hotel is a noun, so the rule says first, but it is said ho-tel with the push on the second part. It is one of the 11 nouns that sit alone, and the lab lists it with them. A rule counted on a list is a pattern, and a pattern has words outside it.
You should be able to put the strong part first for a noun of two parts and second for a verb of two parts, read both rules' scores off the table, sort the words each rule misses into kinds, and say record both ways.
Something to change about this lesson? Write it down, tick it off when it is handled, and export the list when you want to act on it. Kept in this browser only: nothing is sent anywhere, and nobody is notified.
No recommendations yet for this lesson.