It will be seen that rules are of little value, in this as in other departments of the study of language. The main thing is to form the habit of observing words as we read and pronounce them, and thus develop a habit and a sense that will guide us. The important thing to start with is that we should know the general principle on which accent is based.
Special Rules for Accent.
Words having the following terminations are usually accented on the antepenult, or third syllable from the end: cracy, ferous, fluent, flous, honal, gony, grapher, graphy, loger, logist, logy, loquy, machy, mathy, meter, metry, nomy, nomy, parous, pathy, phony, scopy, strophe, tomy, trophy, vomous, vorous.
Words of more than two syllables ending in cate, date, gate, fy, tude, and ty preceded by a vowel usually accent the antepenult, as dep′recate, etc.
All words ending in a syllable beginning with an sh or zh sound, or y consonant sound, except those words ending in ch sounded like sh as capu-chin′, accent the penult or next to the last syllable, as dona′tion, condi′tion, etc.
Words ending in ic usually accent the penult, scientif′ic, histor′ic, etc. The chief exceptions are Ar′abic, arith′metic, ar′senic, cath′olic, chol′eric, her′etic, lu′natic, pleth′oric, pol′itic, rhet′oric, tur′meric. Climacteric is accented by some speakers on one syllable and by some on the other; so are splenetic and schismatic.
Most words ending in eal accent the antepenult, but ide′al and hymene′al are exceptions. Words in ean and eum are divided, some one way and some the other.
Words of two syllable ending in ose usually accent the last syllable, as verbose′, but words of three or more syllables with this ending accent the antepenult, with a secondary accent on the last syllable, as com′-a-tose.
When it is desired to distinguish words differing but by a syllable, the syllable in which the difference lies is given a special accent, as in bi′en′nial and tri′en′nial, em′inent and im′minent, op′pose′ and sup′pose′, etc.
Sounds of Vowels in Different Positions.