Re: DISC: phonological system of Adain

At 5:44 PM -0500 03/14/02, John Cowan wrote:
>Dirk Elzinga scripsit:
>
>>  In English, like the other Germanic languages, stress may fall on any
>>  one of the final three syllables.
>
>Howzat?  APoplexy, INtegrated, PSEUdocoding, MICrocomputer (as distinct
>from microPROCessor), anTIcipate, TERminator, KILopascals -- all drawn
>at random from one book.
I gather it wasn't a Danielle Steele novel; it certainly couldn't be
said to represent English vocabulary very well (not a single word in
the list is native, for example).

But that's not a fair reply. Here's a fairer one.

Your list can be divided into compounds and non-compounds. The compounds are:

PSEUdo-CODing
MICro-comPUTer
KILo-pasCALS

I consider all of these to be compounds, since they combine roots,
even if the roots are bound.

Now for the non-compounds. I have three sources which refer to a
class of stress-neutral or weak suffixes. Their chief property is
that they never draw stress rightward. Inflectional suffixes, -ed,
-ing, -y, and /-@r/ <-er,-ar,-or> belong to this group. All of the
noncompounds in your list have one of these weak suffixes.

This explanation preserves my generalization, but at a cost. Perhaps
it's too great a cost for an adequate description of English. But for
Aidan's purposes, I think that my generalization is good enough.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga                  Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

Man deth swa he byth thonne he mot swa he wile.
'A man does as he is when he can do what he wants.'

- Old English Proverb

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