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From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Stress patterns (Re: Hungarian / Czecho-Slovakian)
Message-ID: <D32M6J.78F@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <rharmsen.176.00160003@knoware.nl> <3g11fe$dcq@overload.lbl.gov> <Pine.SOL.3.91.950125113718.3673D-100000@minerva>
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 15:39:52 GMT
Lines: 40

In article <Pine.SOL.3.91.950125113718.3673D-100000@minerva> Nike Victoria Agman <agmnikv@minerva.cis.yale.edu> writes:
>As far as stress goes, languages don't have many choices.  They can
>have fixed stress or free stress (random is such an ambiguous term [...]).

So is `many'.  But let's do some counting.  Let _Word [m]_ be the _m_th
syllable of the word and _Root [n]_ the _n_th syllable of the root, and
let a negative subscript stand for counting from the end, as in APL, an
underscore for any value, as in Prolog, and a double dot for a range,
as in Pascal.

Oh, and this is not going to be an exhaustive list.

(1) The stress can be fixed on ...

(1.1) Word [1].
(1.2) Word [-1].
(1.3) Word [-2].
(1.4) Word [-3].
(1.5) Word [-2] if it is long or closed, otherwise Word [-3].
(1.6) Word [-1] if it is long and closed, otherwise as in (1.5).
(1.7) Word [-1] if Word is a noun (other than a vocative) or a verb
   (other than an imperative), otherwise Word [1].
(1.8) Root [1].  (Same as (1.1) if there is no prefixation.)
(1.9) Root [-1].

(2) The stress can be restricted to (but otherwise free within) ...

(2.1) Word [-2..-1].
(2.2) Word [-3..-1].
(2.3) Root [_].

(3) The stress can be free (ie `restricted' to Word [_]).

That looks like a fair number of choices to me.

-- 
`Don't know whit ye're bletherin aboot', said Peter.    (The Glasgow Gospel)
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk, iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
