Re: Qosmiani website

En réponse à John Cowan <cowan@...>:

>
> Actually, it's been argued that the *default* stress in English, the
> one
> speakers apply if they haven't heard the word and don't know where the
> stress
> goes, is now on the penultimate, due to the influx of so much old
> French
> and Latin and Latin-pronounced Greek.  For example, I have never heard
> anyone
> say the word "satyagraha" (presumably a Hindi borrowing, referring to
> Gandhi's
> principles of passive resistance), but I would surely say
> /sAtS@'gRAh@/.
>
I thought English speakers who did that explained it as: "this word looks
foreign, or at least not English, and thus I must use a foreign accentuation",
and penultimate accent seems to be considered foreign enough (I tend to do the
same, since French is consistently stressed on the last syllable of a phrase).
So it would then be the contrary, that penultimate stress is what English
speakers find most foreign.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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