From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 18588
Date: 2003-02-08
----- Original Message -----
From: "alex_lycos" <altamix@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 2:20 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Albanian mend-
> Thank you Miguel. How I can find out if there was a stressed vowel or not? For instance in "mentio:nis", there is just the long /o/ there. Which are the criteria for knowing if this "o" was stressed or not? Should be every long vowel stressed one?
The Classical stress rule is rather simple: in words of three or more syllables stress the penultimate (last but one) if it contains a long vowel (as in <men-ti-ó:-nis> or <ma:-tú:-rus>) or is closed (i.e. if a consonant cluster follows and at least the first consonant belongs to the penultimate syllable, as in <di:-réc-tus> or <re-lín-quo:>). Otherwise stress the antepenultimate (last but two) syllable (as in <ví-ri-dis>, <mén-ti-o:> or <tém-po-ra>). The location of stress was basically similar in Proto-Romance, though for various reasons (new borrowings, loss of length distinctions) Late Latin stress was somewhat unstable and sometimes "incorrect" from the point of view of Classical Latin. You'll find some information about those shifts it in the article I uploaded to the Files section a few days ago.
Piotr