英语属于印欧语系(Indo-European)里日耳曼语支中的低德语。日耳曼语的重音位置一般是固定的,即除了少量的前缀可以重读外,重音总是落在词根上,并且不以词尾变化而移动其位置,例如‘Love-’lov-ing-‘lovingly-’loveliness-un’love-ly。因此,古英语虽说是一种自由重音(free-stress)语言,但它的词重音位置基本上是明确的。对多音节单词,古英语遵循日耳 English belongs to the low German language in the Germanic branch of Indo-European. Germanic stress positions are generally fixed, ie accents always fall on the stem except for a small number of prefixes that can be re-read, and their position is not shifted by the suffix, eg ’Love-’lov-ing-’lovingly-’ loveliness-un’love-ly. Therefore, although Old English is a free-stress language, its accent position is basically clear. For multi-syllable words, Old English follows Japanese ears