Stress shifting

Josh Lalonde   Sun Apr 15, 2007 3:26 am GMT
I've noticed in American English that syllables that are ordinarily pronounced with secondary stress sometimes get primary stress in certain phrases. The example that comes to mind for me is "automobile accident". For me, 'automobile' is ["Q4om@%bIo], but I noticed an American speaker putting primary stress on the final syllable in the above-mentioned phrase. Does anyone know the contexts and/or areas where this occurs?