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Is there a way of deciding whether the syllable of a word, in RP, can never be stressed in any sentence?

E.g. congenital /kənˈdʒɛnɪt(ə)l/

I would assume that '(ə)l' can never be stressed, whatever it appears in. If only because I then say it 'ʊl'.

NOTE: my question only makes sense assuming that stress in English is not limited to the word stress defined in dictionaries.

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    "congenital" only has one stressed syllable. Why do you assume that "stress in English is not limited to the word stress defined in dictionaries"? – herisson Apr 04 '16 at 10:24
  • According to this Wikipedia article (which the question should quote [or similar material]), (1) even RP is not well-defined: 'Usage: Faced with the difficulty of defining RP, many writers have tried to distinguish between different sub-varieties.' (2) 'In dictionaries: Most English dictionaries published in Britain (including the Oxford English Dictionary) now give phonetically transcribed RP pronunciations for all words. Pronunciation dictionaries are a special class of dictionary giving a wide range of possible pronunciations ...'. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 04 '16 at 10:27
  • ... But then these two points seem contradictory: how is 'RP' defined in point (2)? //// I'd add that 'how to decide if ... can ...' presupposes a strict set of rules. This is meaningless when authorities can't even agree on what constitutes RP, before the minefield of "which regional variations from RP are 'acceptable'?" is considered. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 04 '16 at 10:27
  • ok, i'll get back to this –  Apr 04 '16 at 10:28
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    Are you asking about phonetic stress, or phonemic stress? /əl/ and /ʊl/ are not contrastive for me apart from stress, so for all I know stressed /əl/ may be phonetically indistinct from /ʊl/. – herisson Apr 04 '16 at 10:37
  • If somebody made me stress the last syllable of congenital, I would pronounce it /ɑl/, and not /æl/ or /ʊl/. The fact that three English speakers disagree on how to pronounce it strongly suggests that nobody actually ever stresses the last syllable. – Peter Shor Apr 04 '16 at 21:31
  • You can stress any syllable of any word at any time. Like most your questions, this question doesn't make sense – Arm the good guys in America Jun 21 '17 at 11:34
  • @Clare as indicated below, "schwa is never stressed" see e.g. A Survey of Modern English. –  Jun 21 '17 at 15:49
  • @user3293056 It is possible to stress a syllable whose vowel sound is a schwa. Do English speakers do this? No. Is it possible to do? Yes. – Arm the good guys in America Jun 23 '17 at 02:31

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You are correct. That symbol is the unstressed schwa. So, it means the stress is in another syllable.

Jhoseth Rodriguez
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