A Pronunciation Rule--Where to Put the Stress

Every Tuesday, the UDN runs a column on English words, which is written by Mr. Chen (陳超明教授), a professor of National Chengchi University. Today besides seven words to learn for the coming week, he deals with the stress of words. Please click on the following link to check it out.

http://mag.udn.com/mag/campus/storypage.jsp?f_MAIN_ID=381&f_SUB_ID=4274&f_ART_ID=224470

 There is a rule not mentioned in today's column. That is one of the rules I won't forget which I learned at UOI, Champaign. The rule goes like this:

If -iV, then the stress of the word falls on the syllable before it. V stands for "vowel". Here are some exmples:

preparation

comedian

initiate (cf. initiation)

negotiate (cf. negotiation)

communion

Except for the letter "i" and when a vowel comes before "r," the vowels "a, e, o, u" sound just the same as their letter sound.  As I often mentioned in the first encounter with my new students, with this rule, you won't have trouble saying the following word: 

antidisestablishmentarianism

Check this rule with the words you know. It's an intriguing rule. 

Of course, every rule has exceptions. Luckily, this rule doesn't have many.