Explain the general rules for stress placement in English words, providing examples.

Stress placement in English often follows general patterns. For two-syllable words, nouns and adjectives typically stress the first syllable (e.g., TEA-cher, PRE-sent), while verbs usually stress the second (e.g., de-CIDE, pre-SENT). In longer words, stress frequently falls on the third-to-last syllable, especially before suffixes like -tion or -ic (e.g., pho-TO-graphy, e-LEC-tric). Compound words generally place stress on the first element (e.g., BLACKbird).