The position of word stress in English is the product of its historical development. It has been influenced by the combination of different tendencies. The oldest of them is known as the recessive tendency, according to which the root syllable i.e. the semantic unit of the word is stressed. So the majority of words of Germanic origin have stresses on the first root syllable, eg. 'clever, 'body, 'water, 'singing. If words are formed with the prefixes with no referential meaning the stress is shifted onto the root syllable, which is not initial in this case, eg.be'fore, be'gin, mis'take. The second tendency is the result of the mutual influence of Germanic and French accentual patterns. It is known as the rhythmic tendency which manifests itself in stressing the third syllable from the end. Eg. 'situate, arꞌticulate. According to both tendencies words of three syllables generally have stress on the first syllable (which is the third syllable from the end), eg. 'cinema, 'enemy, 'afterwards, 'recognize, 'situate (but un'certain, re'lation). Words of four syllables may have either recessive or rhythmic stress, eg. 'architect, 'criticism, 'characterize, re'markable. Rhythmic stress is especially common for verbs with the suffixes -ate, -fy, -ize, eg. 'situate, 'qualify, 'centralize, arꞌticulate, perꞌsonify. Some four-syllable words tend to have a three-syllable accentual pattern, eg. dictionary ['dıkʃәnrı], laboratory ['læbrәtrı].
