Stress

Word, sentence, and emphatic stress in PhlE were also examined to note deviations from gAmE. The findings of the studies reveal that there are words like baptism, hazardous, pedestal, utensil, dioxide, and percentage, whose word stress in all three varieties of PhlE differs from that of gAmE. Table 4 gives polysyllabic words found to be stressed differently from gAmE by all three groups.

The table shows that of the ten words (colleague, govern, menu, precinct, ancestors, baptism, hazardous, pedestal, subsequent, and formidable) stressed on the 1^st syllable in gAmE, only ancestors and subsequent were stressed by the acrolect group on the 1^st syllable. The others were stressed by all three groups on the second syllable.

On the other hand, nine words stressed on the second syllable in gAmE (bamboo, throughout, centennial, committee, dioxide, lieutenant, percentage, semester, and utensil) were stressed by the basilect group on the first syllable with the other two groups likewise stressing the last four words on the same syllable. The first five were stressed by the acrolect group on the second syllable while the mesolect group did so only with the words lieutenant and centennial.

Regarding the six words stressed on the first and third syllables in gAmE, with main stress on the third, (adolescence, antecedent, rehabilitate, commentary, complimentary, and documentary), the first four were stressed on only one syllable by all three groups in PhlE, the second syllable for the first three words and the first syllable for the fourth. With the acrolect group, the last two words in the set – complimentary and documentary – were stressed on the first and third syllables following gAmE pronunciation but the other two groups stressed them only on the third.

Concerning the final set of words, hereditary, interpretative, itinerary and pronunciation, which are stressed on the second and fourth syllables in gAmE, all three groups stressed the first word on the first syllable. The acrolect group stressed the next two words following gAmE pronunciation and so did the mesolect group with the word interpretative, which the basilect group stressed on the first syllable. The word hereditary was also stressed by the mesolect and basilect groups on the first syllable. Whereas the basilect group stressed the last word, pronunciation as per gAmE pronunciation, the other two groups stressed the first and fourth syllables instead.

Other gAmE word stress patterns not found in PhlE are contrasts made between number words ending in –teen and those ending in –ty (e.g. ^Ithirty vs. thir^Iteen); between words that may be used as nouns or as verbs (a rebel vs. to re^Ibel); noun compounds in contrast to phrasal or compound verbs (a ^Idrop-out vs. to drop ^Iout) noun compounds as contrasted with adjective + noun combinations (^Isewing machine vs. sweet-smelling ^Iflowers).

Some trends concerning word stress in PhlE among the mesolect and basilect groups may be pointed out, but these will warrant further investigation and verification. With the addition of affixes to form 4- or 5-syllable words (e.g. commentary and centenary), the mesolect and basilect tend to put the stress on the penultimate syllable. The two varieties tend to favor stressing the 2^nd syllable in 4- or 5-syllable words (e.g. formidable and rehabilitate). For some words that have both a primary and secondary stress (e.g. cemetery, commentary), there is a tendency in the two groups to interchange the two, placing the primary stress where the secondary should be and vice versa, an observation also noted in previous studies (e.g. Llamzon 1969).

Where sentence stress is concerned, the acrolect and mesolect more often than not stress the last content word in breath groups, but this is not apparent in the basilect group who would stress function words or even two words instead of just one in a breath group. Also absent from the basilect variety, but present in the acrolect and mesolect groups is the use of contrastive and emphatic stress.