Re: OT: Justifying a stress pattern (plus OT: joke last name templates)

Mark J. Reed wrote:
> On Dec 30, 2007 12:28 AM, Eric Christopherson <rakko@...> wrote:
>> Somewhat off-topic: I was thinking the other day about my last name
>> and why it's accented on the second syllable rather than the first
>> (vs. the given name Christopher). I have a theory that maybe it's
>> because the majority of -erson names in English are accented on the
>> syllable just before -erson.
>
> It's far more general than that.   Adding morphemes to English words
> often shifts the emphasis.    For instance, pick almost any adjective
> with stress that's not on the final syllable.   If you add "-ity" to
> nominalize it, ithe stress shifts:  '[fn]ormal => [fn]or'mality,
> 'viscous => vis'cosity.  'tranquil => tran'quility; sub'jective =>
> subjec'tivity.  This can happen even when a morpheme is removed first:
>  a'nonymous => ano'nymity.
And Eric replied:

> Right, but my impression was that those words had gone through
> natural evolution in English, whereas borrowed (from Scandinavian)
> names would not have gone through it -- but I don't know how long the
> name has existed in English; maybe it has been there long enough to
> evolve with the rest.
The stress change wasn't evolution in English, it happened in Latin. We
simply retained it, for the most part. So a suffix of germanic origin
wouldn't be likely to cause stress change other than under the influence
of these romance suffixes (this could be viewed as an unnatural
evolution, I suppose, if there's any contrast when talking about human
social things).

>> It's also funny that people use Mc-, which, being an Irish and
>> Scottish Gaelic-derived prefix, doesn't tend to occur along with the
>> mostly Scandinavian -[s]son/-[s]sen or German -[s]sohn. There is
>> McPherson, but that doesn't count because the -son is not derived
>> from its own morpheme.
>
> Well, I think that's intentional.  McSillyson is funny precisely
> because it's unlikely - and unlikely because it's redundant.   :)
"MacRobertson" is a name that turns up around Melbourne because a man
named (of all things) MacPherson Robertson started a confectionery
company called MacRobertson's (since bought by Cadbury Schweppes) and
got himself a lot of money which he proceeded to throw around. So
there's a MacRobertson Girls High School and a MacRobertson Bridge
across the Yarra (nowadays pedestrian-only). A part of the Australian
Antarctic Territory is also called "Mac Robertson Land".

--
Tristan.

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