The ministry of higher and secondary special education of the republic of uzbekistan

al
ex
an
der
 / 
wol
ver
hamp
ton
 / 
mi
ssi
ss
ippi
 
A similar thing happens in the case of 3– syllable words with the pattern, e.g.
ci
ga
rette
 / 
chim
pan
zee
 / 
ja
pa
nese
 / 
pic
tu
resque
It is not enough, then, simply to talk of syllables as being either 
stressed or weak;
with 
words of three or more syllables it may be necessary to distinguish three degrees of stress; 
primary, secondary and weak (or unstressed). 
So, in the case of these two patterns it might be better to show them as: 
(e.g. cigarette) = secondary stress + weak + primary stress and 
 
(e.g. Alexander) = secondary stress + weak + primary stress + weak
Weak Syllables and Schwa 
As a general rule we can say that every syllable contains a vowel sound. A second general 
rule is that the shorter the vowel, the shorter and weaker the syllable. 

---

50 
Now let us take another look at some of the words already examined, this time 
concentrating on the vowel sounds in the weak syllables. To help us do this we will start to 
use phonetic notation where one symbol = one sound. This is because standard spelling 
often makes it difficult to see what the sounds really are.
Janet
 
 
 
ja
net

'
ʤ
æn
ɪ
t / '
ʤ
æn
ə