Difference between revisions of "Retail"

Latest revision as of 09:46, 28 October 2019

The word retail can have different stresses.

• The adjective (more rarely used as a substantive) retail is stressed on the first syllable: 'REE-tail', IPA: /ˈriː teɪl/.
• The verb 'to retail' has two separate meanings.
  • When it means 'to sell [in individual amounts]' (the equivalent of the adjective above) 'to retail' is stressed like it on the first syllable: 're-TAIL', IPA: /ˈriː teɪl/.
  • When 'to retail' means 'to tell the story of', 'to recount', it is stressed on the second syllable: 're-TALE', IPA: /ri ˈteɪl/. (This meaning appears to have developed under the influence of the homophone of its second syllable, 'tale'

Note

This pattern of shifting stress in words that look identical but belong to two separate word classes is quite common in English.

Quirk (1985) (Appendix I.56 B) describes the most common: "When verbs of two syllables are converted into nouns, the stress is sometimes shifted from the second to the first syllable. The first syllable, typically a Latin prefix, often has a reduced vowel /ə/ in the verb but a full vowel in the noun: He was con-VICT-ed (IPA: /kən ˈvɪkt ɪd/) of theft, and so became a CON vict (IPA: /ˈkɒn vɪkt/)" [AWE's rendition of IPA].

There follows a list of some 57 "words having end-stress as verbs but initial stress as nouns in Br[itish] E[nglish]." Note that "in Am[erican] E[nglish], many have initial stress as verbs also". Quirk's list is the foundation of AWE's category:shift of stress. Additions have been made from, amongst others, Fowler, 1926-1996.