Accent and Quantity.
The chief accent or stress in each word may be marked by (·) following
the letter on which the accent begins:- genst
(against), f
g·iv (forgive). To
indicate the secondary accent, when necessary, (:) may be used:-
i:nk
nv·iiny
ns (inconvenience), dist:r
kt
b·iliti (destructibility). These very
convenient marks were introduced by Mr. Ellis. In practice the accent need
only be marked when it is on some other than the first syllable. Thus it
need not be marked in foutogræf (photograph).
Unaccented vowels are always shortened. Thus hii in hii gouz (he goes) is much shorter than in it iz hii (it is he), but its vowel is quite distinct from the regular short i in "hit." As this shortening is always implied by the want of accent, it need not be marked: hi gouz would imply that the i was pronounced as in "hit."
Emphasis, or the accent of a word in a sentence as distinguished from that
of a syllable in a word, is marked by a (·) before the word. Such
subordinate monosyllables as "he," "she," "it," "and," "if," "to," "for,"
&c., are assumed to be unaccented unless they are marked. We thus
distinguish between hii gouz and it iz ·hii, between
hii hæz mai buk (he has my book) and it iz ·mai buk
not ·hiz (it is my book, not his). Principal words,
such as nouns, non-auxiliary verbs and adjectives, which regularly
receive a full accent, may be marked in the same way whenever they are
made exceptionally emphatic, thus ai
·fg·iv yu indicates that the
second syllable of f
g·iv is
uttered with extra emphasis.
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James Chandler 1998.