Lexical accent

The lexical stress is a suprasegmental characteristic by which phonetic enhancement of a syllable is produced within a word; in very long words it can occur in more than one syllable. The manner of producing this enhancement varies from language to language, but usually includes variation in pitch, intensity, and duration of the syllable. Depending on the type of suprasegmental features, a language may have lexical stress that is predominantly intensity stress or tonal stress.

In Spanish, lexical accent acoustically does not involve intensity alone (although it is considered predominantly an intensity accent), but analysis of speech using modern instrumentation has revealed that they combine characteristics of intensity, pitch, and vowel duration. From a conventional orthographic point of view, the primary lexical accent is indicated by the so-called accentuation rules by means of the orthographic sign called tilde or graphic accent. The syllable on which the lexical stress falls is called stressed syllable or stressed , and the one without it is called atonic syllable or unstressed . Although in Spanish the lexical accent and the tonal accent coincide, they are not exactly the same concept. Ancient Greek is one of the best examples of a tone-accented language, since the accent seems to have been mainly of this type.

In many languages the stress falls on a fixed syllable (such as French or Turkish), so it is not distinctive even if it is phonetically audible. It has also been pointed out that some languages, for example in some variants of Japanese (Kagoshima, Miyakonojo, Sendai) all words have an accent. According to some authors, there would be no accent in certain tonal languages such as Chinese or Mende.

Types of lexical accents

The phonetic nature of lexical stress varies from language to language and includes various mechanisms such as tone, intensity, and sometimes the quality and quantity of the vowel or segment that receives the stress.

There are languages, such as English, German, Spanish, French or Italian in which the relief in the voice consists of a greater intensity, that is, a greater effort when exhaling the air, which translates in a slightly more powerful sound. This accent is called intensity, dynamic, expiratory, articulatory or sonority accent.

Traditionally it was considered that the main character of the lexical accent in Spanish was the intensity, however the last investigations carried out have shown that the determining factor is the elevation of the tone, normally accompanied by a greater duration or intensity of the pronunciation of the tonic syllable.

In other languages, such as ancient Greek, stress consists of raising the tone of the voice, in a greater tension of the vocal cords when emitting the stressed syllable. In this case, the accent is called tonic, musical, height, tonal, chromatic or melodic accent.

There are languages with fixed accents, in which the accent falls on a certain syllable, depending on the structure of the language, such as Esperanto, or in Latin, where the accent always falls on the penultimate or the penultimate syllable; and others that have a conditional or free accent, whose place is determined by phonetic, morphological or syntactic circumstances, as in French.

Accent functions

The accent performs four fundamental functions:

1. Contradictive function: it is exercised in the syntagmatic axis. It highlights the syllables accentuated in front of the non-centered. This function is given both in the fixed accent languages, that is, those in which the accent always falls on the same syllable of the word (French, Turkish, Finnish, Czech, etc.), as in the free accent languages, in which the accent may fall on any syllable of the word (Spanish, English).
2. Distinctive function: it is exercised in the paradigmatic axis. This function is only given in the languages of free accent. In them, the position in which the accent is found allows us to distinguish meanings. e.g. number/number/number.
3. Demarcative function: this function is given in the fixed accent languages, in which it allows to point out the limits of the different units of a sequence. In French and Turkish it may indicate the end of a word; in Czech, the beginning, and in languages such as the Polish can occupy a fixed position in relation to the beginning and the end.
4. Completive function: it points out, in the languages of free accent, the presence of an acentual unit without indicating exactly the limits. The existence of a peak of intensity separates the seal elements into two groups: intensive seals and normal seals.

Lexical stress in various languages

In Latin

In Latin, lexical stress was predictable and fell on the penultimate syllable or the penultimate syllable (except in monosyllables). The accent falls on the penultimate syllable if its vowel is long or is a closed syllable, otherwise the accent falls on the antepenultimate syllable (obviously the monosyllable words took it on the only syllable they had, while the two-syllables, on the first); otherwise it fell on the antepenultimate. This type of accent could be interpreted in mora themes, since the long syllables had two moras and the others one mora, thus the accent fell on the penultimate mora before the last vowel. Because of this predictability of the Latin accent, it had no distinctive phonological value.

The vowel system of Latin had the phonemes /ă ā ĕ ē ĭ ī ŏ ō ŭ ū/ which, depending on the quantity, were divided into short vowels /ă, ĕ, ĭ, ŏ, ŭ/ and long vowels /ā, ē, ī, ō, ū/.

The Latin syllable will be long if it contains a diphthong, a naturally long vowel, or if it is a closed syllable (one that ends in a consonant). We see then that the vowel quantity was a distinctive feature that must be taken into account for the accentuation.

Rules of accentuation in Latin

• If the penultimate syllable is long, it accentuates flat:
• If the penultimate syllable is short, the compass is accentuated: dicitur
• There are hardly any sharp words in Latin, so the words bevelled will usually be flat.
• There are no words about misjury.

In Spanish

Functions of the Spanish accent

Antonio Quilis talks about three functions performed by the Spanish accent:

• Contradictive function: between accentuated and incentuated syllables, and accentuated and accentuated words.
• Distinctive function: which gives rise to the acentual lexicon scheme we know.
• Completion function: grouping other incentuate units around the central unit. The culmination function is especially important in poetry, since in the syllable that configures the rhyme, the accent also falls.

The Spanish accent, although inherited from Latin, presents free variation, that is, it falls on one of the last five syllables of a word, usually one of the last three. The evolution between Latin and Spanish is due to a series of phonetic changes such as elisions; therefore, in Spanish, the accent of a word is not predictable and has an important phonological value, particularly in verbs, where the position of the accent makes it possible to distinguish, for example, animo (first present) from animó (past third) of a noun like animo. The three most frequent types of accentuation in Spanish are:

• Proparoxytone or compass: mood, calculation, next.
• Paroxytone or grave: animo, calculo, approximo.
• Oxytonous or acute: animated, calculated, approximated.

The paroxytone stress is the most frequent, followed by oxytone and proparoxytone (in addition, there are a small number of words with stress on the fourth or fifth syllables: simultaneously, rarely).

Although in Spanish the vowel (or syllabic) amount disappeared in pronunciation, the accent precisely indicates its traces. A good example is the words concave and convex. Logic would tell us that they are two twin words; So why is the first one esdrújula and the second flat? In the word concave, the penultimate syllable in Latin was short, because it has a consonant and a vowel (-ca-), but in the second it was long, because it has two consonants in pronunciation (the x) /kon-bék-so/ (although the x is a letter, phonologically it represents here two different juxtaposed consonant phonemes, which in pronunciation belong to two different syllables); so that for Latinos it would have been impossible to pronounce this word as an esdrújula, since the X "attracts" the accent.

In Spanish there are also acute words; that is, those that carry the lexical accent on the last syllable. This feature has also been inherited from Latin: the Spanish words agudas were originally flat (or graves) in Latin and medieval Castilian, but later lost the last syllable, becoming in acute. For example, the Spanish word amor does not come from the Latin nominative AMOR (pronounced flat in Latin: /ámor/), but from the accusative AMORE(M) /amóre/ (in Vulgar Latin the final M was not pronounced) which, losing the final E, became amor /amór/.

To graphically mark the lexical accent, in Spanish the tilde (á, é, í, ó, ú) is used, when appropriate, in accordance with established rules, which are designed to use the tilde in the fewest number of occasions. The tilde is a small tilde over the stressed vowel, also called accent, although the name tilde is preferred so as not to confuse the graphic accent with the lexicon. To find out if a word has an accent, it is necessary to separate the syllables of the word in question and indicate which is the tonic syllable (the one with the lexical accent). Those words with the accent on the last syllable are acute, those that have it on the penultimate are flat, those that have it on the penultimate are esdrújulas, and those that have it on the one before the penultimate are sobresdrújulas. The rules are as follows:

• The words overwhelm are always accentuated. It should be pointed out that only those verbal forms (usually in the imperative way) are overwhelmed with conclusive pronouns. Examples: Tell me, buy them..
• The words (proparoxytonous) are always accentuated. Examples: term, public, political.
• The words llanas (paroxytonas) are not accentuated when they end in vowel, or in vowel followed by -n or -s. For example: weak, nenúfar, tree, Saenz, biceps.
• Acute words (oxytonas) are tilted when they end in vowel, or in vowel followed by -n or -s. The words monosylate, which are only accentuated on certain occasions (see the third subparagraph of the particular cases, below). For example: truck, eat, come, Orleans, come, sixteen, fear, Bernabéu.

Accented and unaccented words in Spanish

In Spanish, a word only has one stressed syllable, which is called a stressed syllable to differentiate it from the rest, which are unstressed syllables. Only in the adverbs in –mente, we find two tonic syllables, that of the adjective from which they derive and the syllable –men. /slowly/.

Any isolated word, taken out of context, has some stress load, but this changes if that word is within a spoken sequence. Within a sentence, we find tonic syllables in some words and words that do not have any syllable of this type.

Stressed words (always have a stressed syllable):

• The noun: /the mésa/ /la cabal/
• The adjective: /the negro/
• The tonic pronoun (which works as a subject or complement with preposition): /tú sábes/
• Indefinite (adjectives or pronouns, regardless of whether they are apocopated): /algúN oNbre/
• The possessive pronouns: /the kulpa is mine/
• Demonstratives (pronouns and adjectives): /that book/
• Numbers (cardinals and ordinales): /dos kásas/
• The verb (although auxiliary): /the gáto a komído/
• The adverb: /kóme póko/
• The interrogative forms (what, who, where, when, how much, how): /ké és/

Unstressed words (they do not have an accent):

• The determined article: /the alma/
• Preposition (except according to): /trabáxa for koméR/
• The conjunctions (except ora, ya, bien, así, barely and compounds): /abla but mál/
• Treatment terms: /doN xosé/
• The first element of the compounds: /dos mil/ /maria xosé/
• The cytic and reflective are: /dix/
• The possessive adjectives, regardless of whether they are nicknamed: /mi padre/
• The forms what, who, where, when, how much, like (if they are not exclusive or interrogative): /I dexé komo bí/
• In the short expressions of affection or reproach, the elements accompanying the nucleus are emphasized: /no puédo Δ bueN oNbre/

There are words that are atonic or tonic depending on their function:

• Later.: it is tonic with temporary function and atone with consecutive function.
• Still: is tonic with adverbial and atone function with prepositional function.
• While: it is tonic with adverbial function and atone with conjunctive function.
• Media: it is tonic with adjective function and atone in the composite forms.
• More: is tonic with adverbial and atone function with nexus function.
• Less: it is tonic with adverbial function and atone as a nexus.

Particular cases:

• The finished adverbs in -ly have double accentuation, that is, the part of the word before that suffix has a tonic syllable and should be accentuated as if the word ended before the suffix; the suffix -, for its part, also has its own accent: it is flat and as it ends in vowel, it is never accentuated. Examples: politely (if polite has tilde, also when the suffix is added), politically, finally (if Final He doesn't have a hesitation, either when the suffix is added.
• To mark the hiatus (and break the diptongo), the closed vowel must be tilded (u, i), even if it does not follow the four above-mentioned standards. Examples: majority (it is a plain word and, when it is finished in the vowel, it should not wear tilde, however, as ia It's a diptongo, it must be tilted so that the lexicon accent falls into the syllable. -ri-If we don't tild it, the tonic syllable would be -I...).
• Some monosyllic words sound the same and, in order not to confuse them by reading them, it has always been agreed to tild one of the two, which in general is the one that is tonic. This tilde is called diacritic. For example:
  • Yes. (adverb to settle; pronoun) - Yeah. (to begin conditionalities; musical note);
  • me. (pronouncing) - my (possessive; musical note);
  • tea (infusion) - you (pronouncing);
  • ♪ (personal name) - You (possessive).
• The words that, who, When, The, where, where, Like, which and How (and in ancient Spanish also whose) are accentuated in the tonic vowel when they act as an exemplary or interrogative adverb (in exclamative prayers, interrogatives or in substantive propositions of indirect questioning). Examples: When are you coming? I'll come when I want to. What is this? I think it's a ball. Who's here? I don't know who's here, but whoever's here can leave now. How much do you want? I want everything I need. What's that song? Where are you going? I'm going where no one sees me. I don't know where he goes..

Emphatic or insistent accent

Although stressed words in Spanish only have one stressed syllable, sometimes we use a second accent to indicate a non-stressed syllable:

• To highlight a word
  • Call the party.
• Personal affectation
  • It's my bone.

It can also be used to reinforce an existing accent, which allows us to emphasize some part of the sentence or avoid confusion:

- You gave it to me.

- Who gave it to you?

- You gave it to me.

Give me a melon. (anyone)

Give me one melon (one alone)

Frequency of stress patterns in Spanish

Antonio Quilis carried out a study of the frequency of stress patterns in Spanish, which replaces the previous study carried out by Pierre Delattre who considered all monosyllables as stressed, and did not distinguish between stressed and unstressed disyllables.

63.44% tonic words versus 36.56% atonous words

Rules of stress in phonetic and phonological transcription

In phonetic and phonological transcription, the tonic syllable of all stressed words is marked with a tilde, whether or not they have a tilde.

• Yeah. "My house"
  • [my kása]: phonetic transcription
  • /mi kása/: phenological transcription

In English

In English, lexical stress has phonological value. This means that the position of the accent has a distinctive value and allows differentiating some words from others, in particular there are many pairs of verbs and nouns that are differentiated by the position of the accent: áccess 'access& #39; / accéss 'access'; import 'well imported' / import 'import', etc.

In French

In French the stress has no distinctive phonological value and is fixed on the last syllable of the word.

The accent in Catalan

In Catalan there are five vowels when it comes to writing, but they can sound in different ways when it comes to pronunciation.

To know how a vowel sounds, we must take into account if it is in a stressed or unstressed syllable.

Stressed vowels

• The /a/, if accented, always has an open accent [à]
• The /e/, if accented, may have an open accent [e] or closed [e] e.g. paté, cafè.
• The /i/, if accented, always has a closed accent [i].
• The /o/, if accented, can have an open accent [ò] or closed [o]
• The /u/, if accented, always has a closed accent [us].

Rules of accentuation

• Acute words carry tilde if they end in vowel, -in or -in.
• The words llanas carry tilde if they do not end in vowel, -in or -in.
• All the words compass and supersujules carry tilde.
• Monosyllables don't wear a tilde unless it's a diacritic tilde.