Re: stress

# 1 <salut_vous_autre@...> wrote:
> So I'd like to ask: Does a regular stress has to depend of its position from
> the end of the word? Or from it's beginning (I think like Finnish)?
It could be either, but not necessarily.  It can also be determined by syllable weight
as well (which may mean different things to different languages: vowel length, codas,
particular codas, etc.).  It also doesn't even have to belong to the word itself:
In French, and to some extent Ancient Greek, stress is determined by the phrase.

> Is it possible to make it depends from its position from the beggining or
> the end of the root? or always on the first, second, third prefix/suffix? or
> the last one?
Germanic in general does the first option.  I'm not sure about suffix/prefix
stressing in particular (what happens to words without suffixes or prefixes?),
but I do know that there are some suffixes that will automatically take the stress
when affixed (e.g. Spanish -ción).

> May it depends of the fact that it is a verb, a noun, an adverb..?
Ancient Greek had different stress systems for (most) verbs: verbs had a regular
"recessive" accent, meaning that the accent would go as far towards the front of the
word as the rules would let it.  Other parts of speech had a lexical accent fixed
on one mora (though it might move to the right if inflections caused it to stand in
a place where stress is not allowed to be by the rules).

English as well has a few rules where stress changes by part of speech: there are
some words that are a noun when accented on the first syllable, and a verb when accented
on the second, such as "object", and "pervert".

> There's a way I've thought of, say me if it sounds natural or if it's too
> weird
>
> I stress the first syllable of the word's root with one exception: when the
> first syllable's consonant isn't aspirated and that there is one or more
> others in the word, the first of them is stressed
It's a little bit unusual, as I don't think onset consonants usually affect syllable
stress.

> Also, when two pronouns are next from each other, the first will have it's
> first syllable stressed, so they will be pronounced has a word
That seems sensible in itself.

> That way it is regular and easy to remember but does that sounds natural?
See the "Stress System Database":
http://www.cf.ac.uk/psych/ssd/#spc
...for a list of languages and the stress systems they use, and also a system for representing
regular stress rules--if your language has regularly-assigned stress, and you can't represent
it in that system, there's a good chance you're doing something unusual (which isn't to say
that another natlang isn't already doing even worse).

	*Muke!
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