Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>> One more rule: words ending in -mente are stressed as if the -mente
>> were
>> a separate word (which historically it was).
>
>Maybe with a secondary stress but personnally I always heard adverbs
in -mente
>stressed on their next-to-last syllable, with maybe a secondary stress due
to
>their length...
That is true; the main stress falls on -mente, but the original stressed
syl. of the adjective does get a secondary stress (and a written accent--
"rápidamente" etc.).
Another good argument for -mente being originally a separate word: if it
were "just a suffix" why is it necessary to use the _feminine_ form of the
adj (I don't know about Romanian, but that's true of Sp-Port.-Fr-Ital.)