Bisyllabic stress alternation

Bisyllabic stress alternation is a stress pattern that goes back to the Old English stress system, whereby verbs tended to have final (ultimate) stress, and nouns tended to have prefinal or penultimate stress. Today this survives in a few dozen pairs of words, including, oddly, some common words of Latin origin.

1 Latinate noun/verb pattern

Some words exist as verbs, and have an alternate life as nouns or adjectives. Some of these bisyllabic words have different stress patterns – ultimate stress for the verb forms, but changing to penultimate stress for their adjective or noun forms. A typical example is to recórd a récord. These are words from Latin that have become common enough to adopt the OE stress patterns. Most of these, like record, object, etc. are noun/verb [N/V] pairs, and most words in this list are also N/V pairs, except as noted, i.e., verb / adjective [V/Adj.] pairs and noun / adjective [N/Adj.] pairs. The word minute has distinct pronunciations: Noun=/mˈɪnɪt/, Adj.=/maɪnˈyu:t/.

noun		verb / adj.
cónflict	[controversy]	conflíct	[to clash]
cónduct	[one’s behavior]	condúct	[to lead, guide]
cóntent(s)	[subject matter]	contént	[be satisfied]
cóntest	[competition]	contést	[to dispute, challenge]
désert	[barren region]	desért	[to abandon]
dígest	[synopsis, summary]	digést	[to absorb]
éxploit	[notable act, adventure]	explóit	[to take advantage of]
íncrease	[enlargement]	incréase	[to make larger]
óbject	[item]	objéct	[to oppose, disagree]
pérmit	[written license]	permít	[to allow, consent]

2 Noun-verb compounds

More stress alternations like this occur with nouns and verbs build from phrasal verbs, e.g., <quotation> overlook, upset, outlay, foresee / foresight, outgrow / outgrowth, overload </quotation>

In compound nouns and verbs created from prepositions (like the particles off, over, out, up) plus a noun/verb word root, again a similar pattern is followed. In nouns, the first part of the compound receives primary stress, and the noun base (stem) receives secondary stress. In verbs, the verb stem receives primary stress, and the particle receives secondary stress.These words are usually from phrasal verbs (to hand óut, a hándout; an úpset, to be upsét), which are an Old English pattern. Most of these, like record, object, etc. are noun/verb [N/V] pairs, and most words in this list are also N/V pairs, except as noted, i.e., verb / adjective [V/Adj.] pairs and noun / adjective [N/Adj.] pairs.

NOUN prefix +stem	VERB prefix + stem
offset	offset
outgrowth	outgrow
overbid	overbid
overcharge	overcharge
overflow	overflow
overhang	overhang
overhaul	overhaul
overlap	overlap
overlay	overlay
overload	overload
overprint	overprint
overthrow	overthrow
overwork	overwork
undercharge	undercharge
undercut	undercut
underlay	underlay
underline	underline
undertaking	undertaking, undertake

3 Phrasal verb/noun patterns

Likewise, phrasal verbs are a type of compound verb, and usually the particle is stressed. But nouns derived from these phrasal verbs again have main stress on the first element.

NOUN prefix +stem	VERB prefix + stem
outcast	cast out
outlet	let out
outlook	look out
output	put out
turn-off	turn off