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Re: *Another* natlang question (this one is short)

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Thursday, July 12, 2001, 18:00
(Re Spanish stress) Christophe and many others wrote:
>Exactly like for two-syllable words: regular stress (ie without accent
mark) is
>on: >- the penultimate for words that end with a vowel, n or s, >- the last syllable for words that end with a consonnant other than n or s.
Quite so. "Consonant other than n or s" includes mostly (for native vocab.): -r (infinitives, some nouns and adjs.), -l (nouns and adjs.), -d (imperative pl. and nouns in -dad, -tud). That's about it, for native words. Any other final C is most likely borrowed: oddities like reloj (prob. < Fr. orloge), bivac (prob. < Fr. bivouac). Then there's álbum (or is it {album}?), pronounced ['albun] in many dialects, though probably not so written.... IIRC early attempts at transcribing Tagalog tried to follow the Spanish rule, resulting in a proliferation of accents. Eventually they got it mostly right: CVCCV(C) always has final stress; most CVCV(C) are penultimate-- these need no mark. But many CVCV(C) are ultimate-- so use the accent. And since they didn't indicate final /?/ (quite common), they had to devise special accents for 'CVCV? (grave on the final V) and CV(C)'CV? forms (circumflex on the final V). Tagalog dictionaries still follow that practice, but I think everyday written usage does not.