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Re: YAEPT French loans

From:Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
Date:Wednesday, August 13, 2008, 8:29
On 2008-08-13 R A Brown wrote:
> If it's only Brits you're concerned with, I guess it's for much the > same reason that the French apparently "don't hear" English stress > patterns. Our neighbors across the Channel generally pronounce > English borrowings and English names, stressing them in the French > manner; we return the compliment :) >
I had a French-born teacher at uni who spoke excellent Swedish, except for stress patterns! I guess I just expect speakers of a language with 'free' stress to be able to reproduce the stress-pattern of a language with bound stress, but apparently English English still defaults to word-initial stress just like Old English did, despite a millennium of massive Romance and Latin borrowings. A reassuring thought in a way. /BP 8^)> -- Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "C'est en vain que nos Josués littéraires crient à la langue de s'arrêter; les langues ni le soleil ne s'arrêtent plus. Le jour où elles se *fixent*, c'est qu'elles meurent." (Victor Hugo)