It will be seen that rules are of little value, in this as in other
departments of the study of language. The main thing is to form the
_habit of observing_ words as we read and pronounce them, and thus develop
a habit and a sense that will guide us. The important thing to start with
is that we should know the general principle on which accent is based.
Special Rules for Accent.
Words having the following terminations are usually accented on the
antepenult, or third syllable from the end: _cracy, ferous, fluent, flous,
honal, gony, grapher, graphy, loger, logist, logy, loquy, machy, mathy,
meter, metry, nomy, nomy, parous, pathy, phony, scopy, strophe, tomy,
trophy, vomous, vorous_.
Words of more than two syllables ending in _cate, date, gate, fy, tude,_
and _ty_ preceded by a vowel usually accent the antepenult,
as _dep'recate,_ etc.
All words ending in a syllable beginning with an _sh_ or _zh_ sound,
or _y_ consonant sound, except those words ending in _ch_ sounded like
_sh_ as _capu-chin',_ accent the penult or next to the last syllable,
as _dona'tion, condi'tion,_ etc.
Words ending in _ic_ usually accent the penult, _scientif'ic, histor'ic,_
etc.
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