The things you learn: de'monstrative

[pne]

So apparently, “demonstrative” (as in “demonstrative pronoun”) is stressed on the second syllable: deMONstrative.

I have pretty much been stressing it on the first, like with “demonstrate”; hence, DEMonstrative.

That’s fairly far back, but not unheard-of for English (compare, for example, “investigator”, which also has main stress on the fourth syllable from the end, at least for me).

Ah well.

(Or is this like “alveolar” [DW, LJ], where a significant number of people use my pronunciation, i.e., the “wrong” one?)

Comments

[steorra]

I pronounced it with first syllable stress based on reading it, too, and got corrected. I think that was when I was in my teens and came across the word in my Old English book.