7 Stress

Every word has primary stress. Primary stress is when a syllable is louder, longer, and more perceptually salient than the other syllables in a word. For example, in the word “phonate” the second syllable carries the primary stress. If a word is monosyllabic, then that syllable is stressed.  Some words have secondary stress as well. Often observed in four-syllable-words, secondary stress is quieter than the primary stressed syllable but not as quiet as the unstressed syllables. For example, the word “absolutely” the secondary stress is on the first syllable “ab” and the primary stress is on the third syllable, “lute”.