Monday, September 1, 2014

What determines the stress of an adjective formed by adding "-ive" to a verb ending in "-ate"?

Some verbs ending in -ate keep their original syllable stress when you add the suffix -ive to form an adjective



e.g.,




imitate/imitative




meditate/meditative



investigate/investigative




For others, the stress moves to the antepenultimate syllable and the 'a' in -ative is reduced;



e.g.,





indicate/indicative



contemplate/contemplative



interrogate/interrogative




Is there a rule or any kind of historical reason why a word would follow one pattern or the other?

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