How do you pronounce Lafayette?

[jcole]

That is the correct French pronunciation, that is if your FI is pronounced like Fi in Fee FI Fo Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.

Also, there is no stress on a particular syllable in normal speech. In declamatory speech though, stress can be put on any of the three for varying effects.

Look any dictionary and you will see at least one syllable of any multi-syllabic word is stressed. In some with more than 2, you will see a secondary stress. In languages other than English, stress may be equal on all syllables.
These are the basic stress rules.

1. Stress the first syllable of:
   
   • Most two-syllable nouns [[examples: CLImate, KNOWledge)
   • Most two-syllable adjectives [[examples: FLIPpant, SPAcious)
   
   
2. Stress the last syllable of:
   
   • Most two-syllable verbs [[examples: reQUIRE, deCIDE)
   
   
3. Stress the second-to-last syllable of:
   
   • Words that end in -ic [[examples: ecSTATic, geoGRAPHic)
   • Words ending in -sion and -tion [[examples: exTENsion, retriBUtion)
   
   
4. Stress the third-from-last syllable of:
   
   • Words that end in -cy, -ty, -phy and -gy [[examples: deMOCracy, unCERtainty, geOGraphy, radiOLogy)
   • Words that end in -al [[examples: exCEPtional, CRItical)