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CHAPTER XV.
THE ENGLISH ACCENT.
293. Many references in the preceding chapters to accent,
or stress, indicate that it is an important factor in the history
of words and deserves special treatment. The importance
of accent was first fully recognized when it was discovered,
that only by taking it into account could certain features
of the great consonant shift be understood, § 24. But
accent as a factor in explaining the changes which words
undergo is by no means confined to the prehistoric periods
of Teutonic and English. The vowels of stressed syllables
must always be separated from those of unstressed syllables
because of changes peculiar to each. Moreover we have
already seen that in the changes affecting English conso-
nants in historic times, accent plays a part quite akin to
that noted in connection with the first consonant shift,
〈 274. All these, and many other points in connection
with the subject, indicate the necessity of a more extended
examination of the principle of accent, especially in English.
294. The term accent is usually confined to stress upon
a particular word or syllable. Stress in the larger sense
however is of two varieties, word-stress, and sentence-stress,
each of which has important relations in the history of

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Publication Information: Book Title: The History of the English Language. Contributors: Oliver Farrar Emerson - author. Publisher: Macmillan. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1894. Page Number: 255.
    
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