Syllable Stress

If a word has more than one syllable, at least one of these syllables must be marked for primary stress.  Other syllables can also be marked with either secondary or no stress.  Syllables that are not marked for stress are assumed to have no stress.

Syllable Stress Markers

1	primary stress (most prominent stress in the word)
2	secondary stress
0	no stress


	Words with only one syllable do not have to be marked for stress, and will be assigned stress level 1 by default:

 spice can be 	`[.1spYs] or 

`[.spYs]

	The syllable stress marker (1, 2, or 0) should be within the syllable boundaries but always before the syllable's vowel.  Thus, if you don't know where the syllable boundary is in a word like "construction," any of the following SPRs will correctly place the primary stress on the vowel in bold type:

"construction"
`[kXn1strHkSXn]
`[kXns1trHkSXn]
`[kXnst1rHkSXn]
`[kXnstr1HkSXn]

See further examples below.

Syllable Boundaries

In SPR output generated by ETI-Eloquence, a period signals the beginning of each syllable. However, periods in user input serve only as a visual aid and will be ignored by the text-to-speech engine.  You cannot override ETI-Eloquence's internal syllabification rules by moving the syllable boundary marker.  

Examples of Syllable Stress and Syllable Boundaries

Single Syllable	SPR
spice  	`[.1spYs]
cloves  	`[.1klovz]
knead  	`[.1nid]
Two Syllables	
honey  	`[.1hH.0ni]
chocolate  	`[.1Cc.0klxt]
cookbook  	`[.1kUk.2bUk]
complete  	`[.0kxm.1plit]
Three Syllables	
cinnamon  	`[.1sI.0nx.0mXn]
celebrate  	`[.1sEl.0X.2bret]
vanilla  	`[.0vx.1nIl.0x]
raspberry  	`[.1raz.2bE.0ri]
Four Syllables	
ingredients  	`[.0IG.1gri.0di.0Xnts]
thermometer  	`[.0TR.1ma.0mX.0tR]
Five Syllables	
refrigerator  	`[.0rX.1frI.0JR.2e.0tR]
horizontally  	`[.2hc.0rX.1zan.0tx.0li]



