 | American and British English pronunciation differences: Encyclopedia II - American and British English pronunciation differences - Stress
American and British English pronunciation differences - Stress
American and British English pronunciation differences - French stress
For many loanwords from French where AmE has final-syllable stress, BrE stresses an earlier syllable. Such words include:
- BrE first-syllable stress: adultA2,B2, ballet, baton, beret, bidet, blasé, brevet, brochureB2, buffet, caféA2, chagrin, chaletA2, chauffeurB2, chiffon, cliché, coupé, croissant, debrisB2, debut, décor, detailA2, détenteB2, flambé, frappé, garageB2, gateau, gourmet, lamé, montageA2, parquet, pastel, paté, précis, sachet, salon, soupcon, vaccine; matinée, negligée, nonchalant, nondescript; also some French names, including Bernard, Calais, Degas, Dijon, Dumas, Francoise, ManetA2, MonetA2, Pauline, Renault, RenéB2, Renoir, Rimbaud, DelacroixB2.
- BrE second-syllable stress: attaché, consommé, décolleté, déclassé, De Beauvoir, Debussy, démodé, denouement, distingué, Dubonnet, escargot, fiancé(e), retroussé
A few French words have other stress differences:
- AmE first-syllable, BrE last-syllable: addressA2 (postal), m(o)ustacheA2; cigaretteA2, limousineB2, magazineB2,
- AmE first-syllable, BrE second-syllable: exposéB2, liaisonA2, macramé, Renaissance
- AmE second-syllable, BrE last-syllable: New Orleans
American and British English pronunciation differences - -ate and -atory
Most 2-syllable verbs ending -ate have first-syllable stress in AmE and second-syllable stress in BrE. This includes castrate, donateA2, mandateB2, prostrate, pulsate, rotate, serrateB2, spectate, striated, translateA2, vacate, vibrate; in the case of cremate, narrate, placate, the first vowel is in addition reduced to /ə/ in BrE. (Examples where AmE and BrE match include debate, elate, relate.) Derived nouns in -ator may retain the distinction, but those in -ation do not. Most longer -ate verbs are pronounced the same in AmE and BrE, but a few have first-syllable stress in BrE and second-syllable stress in AmE: elongate, infiltrateA2, remonstrate, tergiversate. The ending -atory is similarly different: in BrE primary stress moves from the root word to the first syllable of the suffix, while in AmE the stress of the root is unchanged, with a secondary stress in the second syllable of the suffix. Thus, from regulate /'ɹɛgjʊleɪt/ comes regulatory with AmE /'ɹɛgjʊlɪˌtɔɹi/ and BrE /ˌɹɛgjʊ'leɪtəɹiː/. An exception to this is laboratory: AmE /'læbɹɪˌtɔɹi/ and BrE /lə'bɒɹət(ə)ɹiː/.
American and British English pronunciation differences - Miscellaneous stress
There are a number of cases where same-spelled noun, verb and/or adjective have uniform stress in one dialect but distinct stress in the other (e.g. alternate, prospect): see initial-stress-derived noun.
The following table lists words where the only difference between AmE and BrE is in stress (possibly with a consequent reduction of the unstressed vowel). Words with other points of difference are listed in a later table.
Other related archives"checked"/"free", "tense"/"lax", American English, Australian English, Boston accent, British English, Calais, Canterbury, Commonwealth English, De Beauvoir, Debussy, Degas, Delacroix, Dijon, Dumas, General American, IPA, Imbecile, Latin, Manet, Mobile, Monet, New Orleans, Northern English accents, Received Pronunciation, Renaissance, Renault, Renoir, Rimbaud, Saint, Scotland, Sir, Yod-dropping, accent, adverbs, allophone, alveolar-flap, back, camomile, centring diphthongs, coalesce, conservative RP, cot-caught merger, elides, eye dialect, father-bother merger, fewer vowel distinctions before intervocalic [ɹ], flapping, function words, homonyms, initial-stress-derived noun, intrusive R, lexicon, loanwords, lot-cloth split, macramé, marry-merry-Mary merger, merger of the relevant vowels, morpheme, often lost, open, phoneme, placename, pour-poor merger, pronunciation, r-coloured vowels, regional accents of English speakers, rhotic, rosemary, schwa, sonorant, stressed, syllabic, the West Country, titles, trap-bath split, triphthongs, vitamin, vowel, weak form, words with different pronunciation reflected in the spelling
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Stress", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
