harley: I think it's hard for you or anyone to be so detailed about this minute points, but I'd appreciate it if you could give it a try.

In the phrase 'English history teacher' you either want to have English and history together as a unit, or history and teacher.

I, based on what I know theoretically about English, think that when English and history are together, since English is an adjective for history, the stress should fall on history. Just like in 'a beautiful girl' which has the stress on girl, not beautiful, normally speaking.

Then, 'English history' is the subject that I'm a teacher of, and therefore, if I want to indicate that I'm a teacher teaching it, I have to stress 'English history' rather than 'teacher.' Just like in 'math teacher' that has the stress on 'math.'

So, if I want to give numbers based on how strongly the words are pronounced to the phrase 'English history teacher,' I do it like this:

English = 2
History = 1
Teacher = 3


1 is the strongest and 3 is the weakest.

Now about the second case, if I consider 'history teacher' as a unit, then 'history' will take the stress. Now in 'English history teacher', since English is the nationality, the part 'history teacher' takes the stress. So, This time, the numbers will be like this:

English = 3
History = 1
Teacher = 2

So based on my theory, in both cases it's the word History that takes the primary stress, but English and teacher take different stresses in different cases.


Do you find any of it true in reality?

Is that at least close to the way you say that sentence in those two different situations?

I know it's a tough question, but you take your time with it.

Thank you