A minor matter of confusion I have frequently noticed among users of English as a foreign or second language has been the problem of realising what are the appropriate stressings of certain words which exist in one spelling but belong to different word classes. Quite a large group of such words may or may not when they are adjectives or nouns exhibit forestress yet show post-initial stress when they are verbs. These include the following over one hundred items. Only about one in five of them can contain exactly the same set of phonemes in both versions.
absent, abstract, accent, addict, advert, affix, affront, alloy, allure, ally, annex, attribute; collect, combat, combine, commune, compound, compress, concert, conduct, confine, conflict, conscript, console, consort, content, contest, contract, contrast, converse, convert, convict; decrease, defect, defile, descant, desert, detail, dictate, digest, discard, discount, discourse, dislike, dispute; entrance, escort, essay, excise, expert, exploit, extract; ferment, frequent; import, impress, imprint, incense, incline, increase, indent, insult; intern, intrigue, invite object, overflow, overhaul, overlap; perfect, perfume, permit, pervert, present, produce, progress, project, prolapse, prospect, protest, purport; rampage, rebel, rebound, recap, recoil, record, redress, refill, refit, reflect/reflex, refund, refuse, rehash, reject, remit, research, retail; secret(e), subject, survey, suspect; torment, transfer, transplant, transport, upset.
Although as late as 1991 the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary had not got around to putting on record the forestressed variant of the noun dispute that version was at least as commonplace among younger people by the end of the seventies. Its currency was very probably due largely to its adoption by the late Maurice MacMillan (1921-1984) Secretary of State for Employment 1972-73. It was an item in the Wells 1988 LPD questionaire for which respondents showed the 38% preferred the forestressed form.
The forestressed version of the noun defect, not given by Murray in the OED in 1894, and recognised only as a subvariant in the EPD by Jones from 1917 to 1956, was given priority by Gimson in 1977, and as an item in the Wells 1988 LPD questionnaire was preferred by 86% of his (British) respondents.
One such expression, envelop(e), has a minor spelling difference. Some other homographic pairs show a stress difference not between verb and non-verb but between noun and adjective or verb and other verb with different senses eg alternate, compact, invalid, minute and conjure.
abuse, access, acclaim, accord, account, address, advance, advice/advise, advocate, affront, ambush, amend(s), animate, answer, appeal, aspirate, assault, assign(s), attire, attack, avail; cement, collapse, command, comment, complement, consent, control; debate, decay, deceive/ceit, decline, decree, defeat, defend/nce, delay, delight, demise, demur, deposit, desire, despatch, device/devise, disdain, disguise, disgust, display, dissolve, distance, distrust, divide, divorce, effect, embrace, excuse, exchange, exhaust, exhibit, gazette, grimace, implement, index, institute, interest, mistake, offer, preface, profit, prostitute, receipt, recede/cess, recourse, recruit, redress, refrain, release, relish, reprieve, respect, neglect, relay, remand, remark, remove, repair, repeal, report, reprieve, request, reserve, resolve, resort, respect, revenge, reverse, review, revolt, salute, surmise.
Dialectally one also finds noted in Webster's Third New International Dictionary of 1961 or (under "Recessive Accent") in H. Wentworth's American Dialect Dictionary 1944 or in both `debate, `delay, "`deevorce" [ibid], `mistake, `recruit [ibid], `repair [ibid], `report [ibid], `request, `review, `reward (whether authentically used or not this last has featured in various cowboy films).
By contrast com`ment occurs in some British dialects.
That forestressing for nouns seems to be the "natural" habit seems to be confirmed by the fact that, when I come across new words of the kind which I have no memory of ever having met before in print leave alone heard uttered, my automatic tendency seems to be to give them front stress. Recent examples have been the words reverb and percept. One can surely not put this down to analogy alone because there are so many examples of the contrary as our lists show.
Approximately equally many identically spelt verb and noun pairs need have no difference of stressing, including the following:
abuse, access, acclaim, accord, account, address [$ `--] advance, advice/advise, advocate, affront, ambush, amend(s), animate, answer, appeal, aspirate, assault, assign(s), attire, attack, avail; cement, collapse, command, comment [LPD "†"-`-], complement, consent, contact, control; debate, decay, deceive/ceit, decline, decree, defeat, defend/nce, delay, delight, demise, demur, deposit, desire, despatch, device/devise, disdain, disguise, disgust, display, dissolve, distance, distrust, divide, divorce, effect, embrace, excuse, exchange, exhaust [cf Northern `exam], exhibit [also `---], gazette, grimace, implement, index, interest, mistake, offer, preface, profit, receipt, recede/cess, recourse, recruit, redress, refrain, relapse, release, relish, repose, reprieve, respect, neglect, relay, remand, remark, remove, repair, repeal, report, reprieve, request, reserve, resolve, resort, respect, revenge, reverse, review, revolt, salute, surmise.
Verbs with forestress are not common eg contact, conjure, promise, perjure, forfeit.