Stress and poetry (was: Re: Verb order in Montreiano)

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
> On Mon, 2 Apr 2001, Roger Mills wrote:
>
> > Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> > >But seeing this made me want to ask: In what order do people like to
> > >settle on grammatical features (whether or not said features are later
> > >revised)?  I confess I've gone roughly from _Describing Morphosyntax_ and
> >
> > Kash phonology and word structure have barely changed since Day One.
>
> You are a fortunate person.  :-)  I don't seem to be able to come up with
> something I'm happy with in one go.  OTOH I haven't been doing this for
> long, so perhaps someday I can aspire to more efficiency.
I've keep Ajuk phonology and word structure pretty much the same, too.
Just added a bit more leeway with consonant clusters.

> > Stress is 99% penultimate; most -CV suffixes shift stress but a few don't,
> > so there are occasional antepen. stresses; and quite a few final stresses in
> > the compound numbers.  Though the word base is mostly 2 syllables, affixed,
> > derived and compounded forms make for lots of 3, 4 even 5 syll. words, with
> > various secondary stresses.  It would be a syllable-times lang., but AFAICT
> > isn't monotonous.  Poetry tends to be dactylic with occasional trochees,
> > which does get a little DA-da-da-DA-da-da...DA-da at times.
>
> I bet Kash poetry would sound great with drum and flutelike-instrument
> accompaniment, though, if at all applicable to Kash-speakers.  :-)
Hmm. I do need to rework Ajuk's stress, because the rule is that the
primary stress is on the last syllable of the root of a word. I need to
think about secondary stresses, for sure. As it stands, Ajuk poetry has
very odd stress patterns - DA-da-DA-da-da-da-DA... is a simple example,
it gets worse. For that main reason, I've pretty much decided that Ajuk
poetry isn't so much based on rhyme or meter, but rather alliteration
and the like. Although I *do* need to work out secondary stresses.

Okay, here's an example - "Nomapasi shukajapasamudesha" - "We used to
search for ourselves". That's be DA-da-da-da-da-Da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
Urk. But again, that's a rather complex and unpoetic sentance.

--
Robert