Where is the stress in the word “commenting”?

Question

Where is the stress placed in the word commenting? Is it on the first or the second syllable? How do you pronounce it?

It is stressed on the first syllable only. In other words, it's a dactyl. Note that this is different from commending, which is stressed on the second syllable.
@Robusto初夢 I can’t think of a verb where adding -ing ever changes the stress pattern. Can you?
@tchrist: Depends on the dialect, I guess. In some varieties of Southern U.S. speech, for example, the verb display stresses the first syllable, but displaying stresses the second, or at least makes the stresses equal.

teylyn · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-17 06:53:17Z

up vote 9 down vote accepted

It's stressed on the first syllable. A similar looking word is "commencing", which is stressed on the second syllable.

answered Apr 17 '11 at 6:53

teylyn
2,051314

user7516 · Answer 2 · 2011-04-17 13:30:12Z

up vote 3 down vote

The stress is on the first syllable, as both descriptive and prescriptive linguists would agree.

answered Apr 17 '11 at 13:30

user7516
311

Kevin · Answer 3 · 2011-04-17 02:51:40Z

up vote 1 down vote

Light stress on first and third syllable.

answered Apr 17 '11 at 2:51

Kevin
3,618922

	Light? First and third? Do elaborate please. – RegDwighт♦ Apr 17 '11 at 2:54
	I believe that Americans tend to put secondary stress on a lot more syllables than Brits. Hence the difference in pronunciation of words like "military". I believe this is one of these cases; secondary stress on the third syllable doesn't sound odd to me here. – Peter Shor Jan 16 '12 at 1:26

rob · Answer 4 · 2011-04-17 09:23:27Z

up vote 0 down vote

I'm not a native English speaker, but I think the stress should be on the "m"(which I feel is read more comfortable): [kə'menting].

answered Apr 17 '11 at 9:23

rob
111

	As a non-native speaker I thought the stress should be on the "m", too. But, after a look at a dictionary, I released that it's on the first and third syllable. – Ed. Brazil Apr 17 '11 at 10:34
	@Ed. Brazil: Hi Ed, could you share the dictionary you turned to on this? I am always using Cambridge online dictionary(dictionary.cambridge.org) but I don't find an entry for "commenting". Hmm.. I should have done more googling before answering here.. :-) – rob Apr 17 '11 at 11:09
	It's the participle from the verb comment. When adding the "-ing" suffix to a verb to form the participle, the added syllable is always unstressed. – psmears Apr 17 '11 at 12:54
	The dictionary I use is this: dictionary.reference.com. You won't find "Commenting", you can find "Comment". But, if you see that the first syllable is stressed, after adding the suffix the first syllable will still be stressed. – Ed. Brazil Apr 17 '11 at 14:05
	If you did stress the second syllable of comment or commenting this would be a sure sign that you are not a native English speaker. Unlike some other languages, in English stress is both lexical (is part of the word and must be memorized) and phonemic (different stress produces different words, even if they have the same consonant sounds: as in desert and dessert.) – ghoppe Apr 17 '11 at 22:44

4 Answers