Listing to a broadcast on NPR (National Public Radio), I heard a BBC commentator pronounce these words with the accent on the first syllable: contributing; distributing. The accent was faint, but it was definitely there.
This struck me as odd. I'd put the accent on the second syllable: contributing; distributing, and would do the same with the present and past tenses: contribute; contributed.
I've never heard it the BBC way. In what dialects does this pronunciation prevail?
This is a very recent thing. Some people with the southern English accent have switched to initial stress on these words. You probably won't find it in dictionaries, but I increasingly hear it. I'm not sure what sort of BBC commentator you heard: 'BBC' sort of implies conservative accent, but a lot of BBC people (it depends on the station) are actually vox pop, so you'll hear recent pronunciation variants from them.
The noun stress is unchanged; in fact the new verb stress comes from the noun. The nouns have secondary stress on the first syllable: còntribútion. That gives an xoxo stress pattern, with normal penultimate stress. With the verb the final syllable is missing, giving xox. Now final stress is comparatively rare, so it shifts to antepenultimate stress. This preserves the xox pattern matching the verb, rather than shifting to the less related pattern oxo.
There a quite a lot of stress shifts going around. One I've noticed that I don't say and that isn't in (older, at least) dictionaries is súbsidence. Here it's lost its relation to the verb, as older subsídence had, and has shifted by analogy with résidence.
Another in the news is respíratory (which short i), which I'm informed is also current in Australia. I say réspirat'ry, which (older) dictionaries have along with respíratory (long i). The reason for this is probably (i) analogy with spirit rather than respire, and (ii) dislike of pre-antepenultimate stress, which I still tolerate more than most.This message has been edited. Last edited by: aput,
Regarding the BBC commentator, many people bemoan the loss of "BBC pronunciation" when everyone on the radio used Received Pronunciation. Most newsreaders still use it, but not necessarily all, particularly not those on predominately music or sports channels.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Hm. I said final stress was comparatively rare. That's not right, not on verbs. What's rare is final stress on a single morpheme, like caréen, haráss, pollúte. But it becomes very common when we take into account prefixed verbs: com-bíne, re-léase, in-víte, under-stánd, etc. etc.
It occurs to me the final stress contribúte would make perfect sense by analogy with contra-véne. I was thinking too etymologically (contri- is not a prefix), but that doesn't hold much weight in how people actually speak. So my original explanation was too weak to be of much value.
Since you've been here, aput, I have never seen a weak explanation.
As far as súbsidence, I don't think that I have ever said that word, though I have read it. It is relatively rare here, I believe.
I was interested in your discussion of the pronunciation of "respiratory" (especially since my clinical specialty is pulmonary). Here it is pronounced both ways, though I have always pronounced it "resp-er-a-tory." Yet, many say "resp-I-ra-tory." I had always wondered about that pronunciation. Another medical pronunciation I have wondered about is "râles." Many say it with a long "a," though I was always taught "r-ah-ls." Again, clinicians say it both ways.
