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Enclitic stress

Sound
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A stress pattern where a normally unstressed word receives emphasis due to its enclosure by stressed words

Detailed Definition
Enclitic stress refers to the reduced or unstressed pronunciation of a word (often a grammatical particle) that leans phonetically on the preceding stressed word; in poetic meter, enclitics may be treated as part of the prior foot, affecting scansion and rhythmic flow.
Example
Example in poetry:
In “photograph,” the stress shifts to “graph” when followed by a vowel: “Take a photograph of it”; “Every” becomes “ev’ry” in metered verse to maintain iambic flow; “Labor” pronounced “lab’r” before a vowel in Shakespearean blank verse; “History” reduced to “hist’ry” in Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”
Additional Notes
Stress falling on word's final syllable due to enclitic (unstressed word leaning on previous word). Metrical term for understanding stress patterns when particles like "-'d" or "'ll" follow words. Important for accurate scansion in conversational meters.
Also Known As
Attached stress Dependent accent Leaning emphasis Appended beat
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