Re: CHAT: Importance of stress

David Bell wrote:

>> > Aha!  The old Latin/Quenya stress rule!  A simpler way to state it would
>> > be:  "Stress the penultimate syllable if heavy, otherwise stress the
>> > antepenult."  Amman Iar, like Tokana and numerous natlangs, appears to
>> > distinguish 'heavy' syllables (those ending in a consonant or diphthong/
>> > long vowel) and 'light' syllables (those ending in a short vowel).
>
>On reflection, this is not quite correct.  The heavy/light syllable
>distinction is not really operative here, although my previous description
>did not really adequately reveal that.  Thus
>
>1 [C]VC VC' CVC erinvar [erin'var]
>2 [C]VC VCC' VC orcarmar [orcarm'ar]
>3 [C]VC' VC VC erinis [er'inis]
>
>In each of the above, the penult is 'heavy', but in (3), the antepenult
>takes the stress.  (1) and (3) show that it is not the quality of the penult
>(whether light or heavy) in isolation that determines the stress pattern.
>Apparently, the mere existence of a coda in the penult is insufficient to
>trigger stress.  If mora count is involved here at all, it would seem that
>an ultimate syllable with an onset has the effect of increasing the
>effective mora count of the penult.
Hold on, hold on.  Are you saying that your example words are syllabified
like this?

(1)     er.in.var
        orc.arm.ar
        er.in.is

If so, then Amman Iar is weirder than I thought!  I was assuming that
intervocalic single consonants syllabified with the following vowel, and
that intervocalic consonant clusters and geminates were broken up
(i.e. VCV is V.CV, and VCCV is VC.CV).  In other words, I was assuming
the following syllabification:

(2)     e.rin.var
        or.car.mar
        e.ri.nis

If you assume the syllabification in (2), then the Amman Iar stress
and gemination rules couldn't be simpler.  But if the syllabfication in
(1) is correct, then all hell breaks loose.

So what are your intuitions, as the world's only Amman Iar
speaker?  :-)

Matt.