Re: YAEPT French loans

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)