The stress in compound and polysyllabic words

Diffuse(double peak) – all notional words are fully stressed;

Mixed prominence head – some notional words in the head are fully stresed, and some – partially stressed.

THE STEPPING HEADS. THEIR USAGE AND MODAL MEANING

The Gradually Descending Stepping Head ( always diffuse/double-peak or mixed prominence) is stylistically and emotionally neutral, even monotonous, so it is mostly used in formal conversations, lecturing, didactic monologues, and in reading written texts. It gives the feeling of seriousness and weight to the utterance.

e.g.: The De'scending 'Stepping 'Head is sty'listically neutral.

This head may achieve extra prominence by breaking the downward movement and pronouncing one of the stresssed syllables on a rather high pitch level. Such a head is called The Broken Descending Stepping Head or the head with the “special” or “accidental” rise. The words that normally receive special prominence are the so-called “itensifiers”, which express an unusual degree of quantity, quality, size or unexpexted and extraordinary actions.

nouns: crowds, hundreds, thousands;

verbs: cry, push, shout;

adverbs: much, more, too, very, immediately.

e.g.: We’ve 'wasted ''thousands of ‘dollars! Or: We’ve 'wasted thousands of ‘dollars!