Re: CHAT: Blandness (was: Uusisuom's influences)

Andreas Johansson sikayal:

> >How have other people handled stress/accent?
> >
> >YHL
Heh.  I'm rather embarrased to admit it, but I have no idea how stress
works in Yivríndil.  I have stressed words more or less the same way from
the beginning, but I do them instinctively, and I have never been able to
figure out how I am assigning the stress.  I was able to right down a few
general rules a while ago when I tried to codify it, but there were always
numerous exceptions and idiosyncracies.  To make matters worse, the stress
isn't entirely consistent--some words have more than one acceptable
stress, and the actual stress will vary according to the other words
around it.

So I guess I should just say that Yivríndil stress is semi-regular, but
ultimately unpredictable.  Unfortunately, Yivríndil dictionaries don't
mark stress, making this a real bugger for foreigners trying to learn the
langauge ;-).

Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton

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