Accent

Accent, in Language, is a special stress of voice laid upon one syllable of a word, by which it is made more prominent than the rest; every word in English has one syllable thus brought markedly into notice. The accented syllable is sometimes indicated by a mark, as away, for'tify. When the accented syllable falls near the end of a long word, there may be one or more secondary accents, as in rec'ommend, subor'dina'tion. Accent depends upon force of vocal or articulative effort, not upon highness or lowness of pitch. Variations of pitch produce what elocutionists call inflection. In English, many nouns are converted into verbs simply by transposing the accent, as ob'ject—object. It is accent alone, and not quantity, that determines English measures or metres in versification. No rule can be given as to what syllable of a word shall be accented. There seems to be an increasing tendency in our language to throw the accent towards the beginning of words (see RHYME, METRE, RHYTHM).—Emphasis is to sentences what accent is to words; it is a stress laid upon some one word or part of a sentence to make it prominent. If accent is syllabic emphasis, emphasis is logical accent.