Trager-Smith Notation
The linguists George Trager and Henry Lee Smith described a four-stress system in their An Outline of English Structure, (1951). Hobsbaum (1996) describes and uses the system. Corn describes this system as "a little confusing to the eye" and prefers to use a numerical system such as Jespersen's original four-stress system. Wallace (1996:30) asserts that "We should never use four degrees of speech stress for scanning." His objections include that any four-stress system abolishes the spondee, and that the system from Trager & Smith (1951), for example, is "too much machinery ... to keep track of."
| Symbol | Syllable Type | Description |
| / | Primary Stress | Heavy stress |
| ⋀ | Secondary Stress | Medium Stress |
| \ | Tertiary Stress | Medium-Light |
| ⌣ | Weak | Light syllable |
Read more about this topic: Systems Of Scansion