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It's told that ё is always stressed. However, when browsing declension charts of numerals, if I'm not mistaken, I noticed the following:

Трёхсо́т

With a stress mark on the syllable -сот.

So what does this mean?

  1. Stress on -сот rather than on трёх-

  2. Both stresses possible

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9
  • 2
    Both, as I understand. There is also word четырёхколёсный exists.
    – Dmitriy
    Mar 12, 2018 at 13:29
  • 5
    In compound words containing more than one root, Russian tends to stress the last root, as opposed to English which tends to stress the first one. So if the first root of a compound noun is monosyllabic and has ё in it, then this ё is not stressed, as in your example. But if the first root is polysyllabic and has ё, like in the example by @Dmitry , then that ё can have a secondary stress, but also can well have no stress whatsoever.
    – Yellow Sky
    Mar 12, 2018 at 13:37
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    If "ё" were unstressed, it would be reducted and the word would be pronounced like [трихсот] or similar.
    – Abakan
    Mar 12, 2018 at 14:19
  • There is a word гёмбёц, with stress on second ё.
    – user31264
    Mar 12, 2018 at 14:36
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    @Joker_vD I doubt I have ever heard [трихсот].
    – Abakan
    Mar 12, 2018 at 15:01

3 Answers 3

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19

There are several words with unstressed ё:

  • (Трёх-/Четырёх-) (-мéрный/-этáжный/-я́русный/-уго́льный/-колёсный/...) - two stresses: ё and other syllable.
  • (Трёхсо́т-/Четырёхсо́т-) (-мéрный/-этáжный/-я́русный/-уго́льный/-колёсный/...) - two stresses, ё unstressed.
  • Сёгýн - unstressed ё.
  • Щёлочноземéльный - two stresses.
  • Сёрфинги́ст, Кёрлинги́ст - unstressed ё.
  • Трёхрублёвка - two stresses.

Also, there is a geographic name Бёрёлёх. I don't know what syllable is stressed, but it's guaranteed that two of three are unstressed.

As for the word трёхсо́т, the stressed syllable is definitely о́.

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3
  • How is unstressed ё pronounced?
    – Chill2Macht
    Mar 16, 2018 at 13:48
  • 3
    @Chill2Macht Just like stressed ё [йо], but without a stress. The same difference as between any other stressed and unstressed vowels. I doubt I can come up with anything else.
    – Dmitry ♦
    Mar 16, 2018 at 14:58
  • That helps, thank you. Sometimes the unstressed versions sound like different vowels, hence my confusion.
    – Chill2Macht
    Mar 16, 2018 at 21:29
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Short answer: stress is on -сот; you may put secondary stress on трёх-

This is a compound word. In compound words generally the second part is stressed, but first part may have a secondary stress.

This rule seems to take over from the always-stress-ё rule.

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5

There are loan names with non-stressed ё as well. For example, the surname of the mathematician Paul Erdős is spelled as Э́рдёш.

Regarding трёхсот: you may put secondary stress on the first syllable indeed, but I don't hear any difference between this word and the word двухсот, where the secondary stress doesn't appear, so it is not necessary.

Even more, you can construct longer words where secondary stress on ё can hardly apply: for example, трёхсо́тметро́вый.

You may want to look at the pronunciation of these words on forvo:

трёхсотметровую

трёхсот

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