Secondarily accented verse-members, mostly monosyllabic and long (denoted by `×, and occasionally, when short, by `)), are root-syllables in the second part of compounds, long second syllables of trisyllabic words whose root-syllable is long, and other syllables where in ordinary speech the presence of a secondary accent is unmistakable. The rhythmical value of these syllables with secondary accent is not always the same. When they stand in a foot or measure of two members and are preceded by an accented syllable they count as simply unaccented, and the foot is practically identical with the normal type represented by the notation -´ × (as in the hemistich _w[=í]sra wórda_), but these half-accented syllables may be called _heavy_ theses, and the feet which contain them may be denoted by the formula -´ `×, as in _w[=í]sf[´æ]st wórdum_ (-´ `× | -´ ×). A hemistich like the last is called by Sievers strengthened (_gesteigert_), or if it has two heavy unaccented syllables in both feet, doubly strengthened, as in the section _g[=ú]ðrìnc góldwlànc_ (-´ `× | -´ ´×). In these examples the occurrence of a heavy unaccented syllable is permissible but not necessary; but in feet or measures of three members they are obligatory, being required as an intermediate degree between the arsis and thesis, or strongly accented and unaccented member, as in _þégn Hr[=ó]ðg[=á]res_ (-´| -´ × `×), or _fýrst fórð gew[=à]t_ (-´ | -´ × × `×), or _h[=é]al[´=æ]rna m[´=æ]st_ (-´ × `× | -´). In these cases Sievers gives the verse-member with this secondary accent the character of a subordinate arsis, or beat (_Nebenhebung_). But it is better, in view of the strongly marked two-beat swing of the hemistich, to look on such members with a secondary accent as having only the rhythmical value of unaccented syllables, and to call them _theses_ with a slight accent. The two-beat rhythm of the hemistich is its main characteristic, for though the two beats are not always of exactly equal force[64] they are always prominently distinguished from the unaccented members of the hemistich, the rhythm of which would be marred by the introduction of an additional beat however slightly marked.
Cases in which the two chief beats of the hemistich are not of exactly the same force occur when two accented syllables, either both with chief accent or one with chief and the other with secondary accent, stand in immediate juxtaposition, not separated by an unaccented syllable. The second of these two accented syllables may be a short syllable with chief accent, instead of a long syllable as is the rule. But in either case, whether long or short, this second beat following at once on the first beat is usually uttered with somewhat less force than the first, as can be seen from examples like _geb[=ú]n h[æ´]fdon_, Beow. 117; _t[=o] h[=á]m fáran_, 121; _mid [=æ´]rd[æ´]ge_, 126. The second beat rarely predominates over the first. The cause of this variation in the force of the two beats is to be sought in the laws of the syntactical accent.