Word Accent

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In phonology, the word accent or word stress is the accentuation of a syllable in a polysyllabic word form. The word accent is a prosodic characteristic of the word and one of several linguistic accents . It is included in the melody and depends on the environment. In longer or compound words , there can be a main accent and one or more secondary accents.

In some languages ​​the word accent is made recognizable in the script, cf. Accent (writing) .

In the following we note the word accent with the system of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which allows a distinction between different types of accents and in which short vertical lines are placed in front of the stressed syllable ($):

  • ˈ $ The superscript denotes the main or primary accent: ˈZeitung - Comˈputer - Hotel.
  • ˌ $ The subscript denotes the secondary or secondary accent: ˈBahnhofˌstraße - ˌthirty year celebration.
  • ˈˈ $ Two superscripts are sometimes used to denote the accent or contrasting accent: ninty, not ninteen.

Word accent in German

The accent in High German is a dynamic or pressure accent, which means that it is essentially realized through increased volume.

In the German language, the word accent is often on the stem syllable , which is often the first syllable of a word (after the prefixes ). In terms of language typology, however, the word accent in German is free, i. that is, it can stand on any syllable; z. B. Permit, ˈVacation, pigˈre, hick egg. The word accent for emphasis is not marked separately in the written German language , except in rare cases for foreign words and names.

There are word pairs that only differ in their accent:

  • drive around ("I drive around the obstacle", evade, circumnavigate, around) - drive around ("He has knocked over the sign.", make it fall over / ankle)
  • switch - switch
  • overflow - overflow
  • Roˈman (story in book form) - ˈRoman (name)
  • August (month) - August (name, esp. Silly August )
  • modern (adjective; novel) - ˈmodern (verb; gammeln)

Word accent in Latin

For the word accent in Latin, the so-called Paenultimagesetz applies . The word accent is on the penultimate syllable, provided that it is long. If this is short, the word accent is on the third from last syllable, the antepenultima, regardless of its quantity .

Word accent in Russian

In Russian the word accent is free, i.e. H. it can in principle lie on any syllable of the word, and movable, i.e. H. it can be in different positions in the different forms of a word. The emphasis has historical origins. The accent jumps in some words, especially in the conjugation between the first person singular and the second person singular ( e.g. я пиˈшу ja piˈschu  = I write and ты ˈпишешь ty ˈpischesch  = you write ). In addition, some nouns have emphasized plural endings ( e.g. проˈфессор proˈfessor  - профессоˈра professoˈra ) or forms of the Indo-European locative , which has been replaced by the prepositive in modern Russian .

Word accent in Romanian

The Romanian has as the Russian a free and mobile accent. It is characterized by a wide range of syllables that can be emphasized, as the accent can fall on the last to the sixth from last syllable:

  • Fourth from last syllable: paturile [ˈpa.tu.ri.le] 'the beds'
  • Fifth from last syllable: nouăsprezece [ˈno.u̯ə.spre.ze.t͡ʃe] 'nineteen'
  • Sixth to last syllable: (al) nouăsprezecelea [ˈno.u̯ə.spre.ze.t͡ʃe.le̯a] '(the) nineteenth'

In addition, there are words and grammatical forms that only differ from one another by their respective accents:

  • veselă [ˈve.se.lə] 'happy' vs. veselă [ve.ˈse.lə] 'dishes'
  • cântă [ˈkɨn.tə] 'he / she / it sings' vs. cântă [kɨn.ˈtə] 'he / she / it sang'

See also

Web links

Wiktionary: word accent  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations