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YAEPT (stress in noun compounds) (was: 'noun' and 'adjective')

From:Tim May <butsuri@...>
Date:Friday, March 3, 2006, 19:17
Benct Philip Jonsson wrote at 2006-03-03 19:35:46 (+0100)
 > Mark J. Reed skrev:
 >
 >
 > >> I once read an Anglophone phonetician pointing out the
 > >>difference in intonation between the compound _orange juice_
 > >>meaning "juice made of oranges" and the adjective + noun phrase
 > >>_orange juice_ meaning "any juice of orange color": the compound
 > >>has stress only on _orange_ while the phrase has stress on both
 > >>_orange_ and _juice_.  By that criterion _apple pie_ is a
 > >>compound!
 > >
 > >
 > > ?  Not the way I say it; "apple pie" has equal stress on both
 > > words.  When I say it with the stress only on "apple", the result
 > > sounds like someone speaking with a marked foreign accent.
 >
 > Being tone deaf I might well have gotten the details of the
 > stress wrong, but you have to agree that _apple pie_ has the
 > same stress pattern as the "juice made of oranges"
 > version of _orange juice_, whichever the actual realization
 > is, don't you (and Ray)?

It doesn't.  The primary stress is on the first syllable of "orange
juice"* and the last of "apple pie"; I can't imagine "apple pie"
taking the pattern of "orange juice" _ever_.  "Apple cake" could,
easily, in which case it might be written "applecake".  "Applepie" is
impossible, I think, at least in my English.  I'm not sure if the
restriction is semantic or phonological.


* In the relevant sense.

Replies

Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>
taliesin the storyteller <taliesin-conlang@...>