How are these verbs pronounced?
I've noticed that there were a lot of verbs with accents like "Belovéd", "Chainéd", etc.. in Shakespearean literature and English poetry.
I've found out that the these accents were aimed at changing the pronunciation of the words but still I don't know how to pronounce them.
Do we have to keep the pronunciation and just stress the "é"? Or perhaps simply pronounce it and keep the normal stress?
If anyone knows...
I think in Shakespeare's works they quite often use a grave accent (è) as well.
Anyway, the accent means that you pronounce the "-ed" suffix as a separate syllable. It doesn't have any effect on the stress. For example,
"belovèd" [bI"lVvId]
"chainèd" ["tSeInId]
In fact, "beloved" is still often (usually?) pronounced with three syllables.
What these relate to is that simple past and past participle forms in English with the suffix -"ed" were historically pronounced [Id], but throughout the Early New English period cases of these not after /d/ or /t/ were often replaced with [d] or [t] (the latter if there was a preceding fortis consonant, or otherwise the former), until the Late New English period where the aforementioned process was completed (with a some exceptions in adjectival forms).
However, such literature was written when forms with [Id] across the board were still current but were used side-by-side with forms with [d] or [t]; consequently forms like those you have mentioned were used to emphasize to the reader that forms using [Id] were intended, as they often affected the rhyme and meter of such literature (as much of such as poetic rather than prose in nature).
Thank you so much for your answers!