Re: Justifying a stress pattern

This is called a default to left stress system--just like my language
Gweydr.  Many natlangs have one. The only wrinkle is the final cluster
vs. final coda.  Which consonants and clusters may end words?  Seems
the first final consonant is just extrametrical (e.g. s and n in
Spanish).

Sent from my new iPhone!

On Dec 29, 2007, at 7:17 AM, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:

> One project of mine that has never progressed much beyond the naming
> language
> stage is Keshean (Kesheâras). One particularity it has is a system o
> f stress
> placement that seemed to make sense at the time but now strikes me
> as odd. Now,
> certain real-world languages feature stress patterns that alo strike
> me as odd,
> but can be explained, or at least compactly described, by moraic
> theory or the
> like - eg. Latin, where stress falls on the second-to-last mora,
> ignoring the
> final syllable. Perhaps someone can think of a similar compact
> description for
> Kesheah stress. The noncompact description might be stated like this:
>
> i) The stress goes on the last syllable if that contains a long
> vowel (or
> diphthong) or ends in a consonant cluster.
> ii) Failing that, the next long syllable to the left.
> iii) If all nonfinal syllables are short, stress goes on the first
> syllable.
>
> Some examples (colon marks long vowel, accent stress):
> élshas
> elshá:
> elshaís
> aréts
> áreda
> áredikas
> stra:gá:nas
> reáxtanas
>
> ('sh'=/S/, the rest more or less = IPA)
>
> The oddity, of course, is that a long final syllable doesn't attract
> the stress
> if it ends in a short vowel followed by a single consonant. The
> description
> would be simplified if the final consonant, if any, of each word
> were ignored -
> the stress rule would then be stress on the rightmost long syllable,
> or on the
> leftmost in the absence of long syllables - but that seems very
> arbitrary.
>
> Suggestions? Comments?
>
> Andreas

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