VARIATION OP ACCENT. 35 



(281 out of 396). This preponderance of variants in first 

 and second syllables is still greater when we note that the 

 numbers in italic in the table represent derivative words 

 whose accent is governed by their originals. Thus the trisyl- 

 lable cephalic varies in accent between the first and second 

 syllable, and this variation is extended to 47 derivatives of 

 more than three syllables, such as brachycephalic and micro- 

 cephalic. 



According to the premises the variant accentuations auth- 

 orized by the dictionary present the word so affected as under- 

 going a shift of syllabic accent. But the shift must have 

 begun before the lexicographer dignified it as a variant. So 

 may the old pronunciation linger among many speakers after 

 the lexicographer has not only preferred the new but dis- 

 carded the old accent even as a variant. These primary and 

 final stages in the history of a shift of accent are not within 

 the lexicographer's horizon. But to complete the perspective, 

 we add some examples of these stages in the following classi- 

 fication of specimens. 



Summarizing, we find that the general shift of English 

 accent is to or toward the beginning of the word, but that it 

 may be restrained by ( i ) the tendency to differentiate the 

 verb from other parts of speech, (2) the difficulty of pronoun- 

 cing too many unaccented syllables, and (3) prefixes. 



With this general concept in mind we may arrange the 

 specimens as follows to illustrate the stages through which a 

 shift of accent passes into, through and out of the dictionary. 

 The list of variants recognized by the lexicographer are full ; 

 the other specimens are simply illustrative. 



( I ) In the following words the shift of accent from the 

 second to the first syllable is not yet acknowledged by the 

 dictionary as a variant ^" : — 



*The following abbreviations are used: n., noun; a., adjective; 

 ad., adverb; v., verb. Other letters in parentheses are variant spellings. 



