Word Stress – Compound Nouns
Hello! I’m John Russell.
Do you follow sports? Or perhaps you prefer books? Both of these topics can teach you a lot about pronunciation in American English. I’ll explain.
In grammar, we talk about compound nouns – two words that come together to carry one meaning. In many cases, the compound noun consists of two nouns.
Like this:
Book is a noun
Shelf is a noun
When you put the two together, you get a compound noun: bookshelf.
Bookshelf
Or consider this example from sports:
Foot is a noun
Ball is a noun
When you put the two together, you get football.
Football
You might be asking yourself what this discussion has to do with pronunciation.
The answer comes down to stress – saying something louder or in a higher pitch. Americans often stress the first part, or word, of a compound noun.
LIke this:
Bookcase
Bookmark
Bookstore
Or like this:
Baseball
Ballpark
Basketball
Now, there are compound nouns that are not spelled as one word. For example, credit card.
Still, the same general idea holds true – we stress the first word, credit.
Credit card
That’s all for today! Keep up the good work.
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