Pronunciation of "bifurcate" as an adjective

It appears that the word "bifurcate" has a single spelling, but two possible pronunciations.

As a verb, according to both Wiktionary and dictionary.com, the pronunciation of the verb is:

/ˈbaɪfɚkeɪt/

Wiktionary additionally lists the following pronunciation for the adjective:

/baɪˈfɝkət/

And dictionary.com says:

/... adj. also ˈbaɪ fər kɪt, baɪˈfɜr-/

Forvo.com has the adjective sounding the same as the verb.

What is the proper pronunciation of "bifurcate" as an adjective? Is it always different as Wiktionary indicates? Can it be sometimes different (I think that's what dictionary.com is saying)? Is it usually the same (as Forvo might be suggesting)?

Solution 1:

It seems to be a common thing in English to pronounce adjectives and even nouns ending in ate with a schwa, in contrast to verbs ending with the same letters:

I think most people would pronounce intricate, accurate and prelate with a schwa, but not indicate or relate.

Bifurcate simply follows the same pattern, getting pronounced as a verb or as an adjective depending on usage.

A similar things happens with predicate, which also has the same distinction in pronunciation according to MerriamWebster.

(I just realized there are counterexamples, like irate... but no pattern is 100% foolproof.)

Solution 2:

Nouns and adjectives in English have more of a tendency than verbs to shift stress to the left and to lose stress on non-primary stressed syllables on the right. It's basically irregular where it has happened and consequently no rule is going to work for all examples. 1com2bine (farm implement) vs com1bine, 1record vs re1cord (hyphenation is after "c" for the noun but before it for the verb), 1delegate vs 1dele2gate, and so on.