Lecture 4: Stress and Syllablic Separation

[Hooligan]

Hello students —

This week we will conclude the three weeks of lectures intented to give you a solid foundation in the written Talossan word and how to pronounce it. In Week 2 we discussed the vowels and vowel system, last week we discussed consonants and their pronunciation. This week we will discuss the other features of written Talossan.

PART 1: STRESS

We have already talked a bit about the Talossan stress marks, acute or grave accent marks or circumflexes, which are used on the Talossan vowels. For example, an unstressmarked letter e is stressmarked by becoming é (or, for stylistic reasons, when at the end of a word, è). Similarly, the unstressmarked letter ä becomes â when stressmarked.

But what exactly is "stress" and what does it mean in the pronunciation of a word containing a stressmarked vowel? Stress is the word used to indicate which of the syllables of a word is given primary emphasis in a word when spoken. For example, in English, the word discus (the disc that is hurled in the Olympic event) is "stressed" on the first syllable dis-, while the word discuss (to talk about something) is "stressed" on the second syllable -cuss. In English this distinction is not marked in any way (other than the doubling of the letter s in this particular case).

Because English does not have a system of stress marking, typically, the stress of an English word must be learned and memorized. Some rules exist to help determine the placement of stress in English words, but English is rife with exceptions to these rules.

Talossan, on the other hand, has both

• a definite and unbroken rule that determines where stress is placed on words in which no vowel is marked (that is, this rule determines which syllable is in "default stress position" in a word, and therefore need not be marked),
• and, as we know, an easy to use system of stressmarking that is used consistently to mark all words in which the spoken stress is to be placed on a syllable that is not in "default stress position".

Historical note: Prior to the Arestada of 2007, Talossan could be said to have neither of the above two features. That is, in "Old Spelling", there is no rule to assist in determination of stress in words containing no stressmarked vowel (such as saftrac = breakfast). Additionally, many words contain more than one stressmarked vowel in "Old Spelling"; only memorization and a familiarity with vocabulary could assist in determining which (if any) of the marks truly indicated stress. This second situation was partially due to the fact that pre-Arestada Talossan retained all stressmarks of a word in all words built from it. For example, the word xhurnál (= journal or newspaper) became xhurnálátsch (= tabloid newspaper) by the addition of the -átsch suffix. Thus we see, in "Old Spelling", two competing stress marks, and only fluency in the language could assist in determining which to obey in speech. In modern Talossan, these two words are xhurnal and xhurnalatsch, as both follow the default stress rule that we will now discuss.

The Stress Rule

Students familiar with Spanish and other Romance languages are probably quite at home with the concept of stressmarking only when necessary, and omitting stressmarks when stress falls in the "default position" for that language. The stress rule in Spanish, for example, is that (unless otherwise marked) stress falls on the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable of all words that end in a vowel, or n or s; otherwise, stress falls on the word's final syllable. This is why a Spanish name like José is stressmarked as is a Spanish word like médico, while words such as toro (stressed on the initial syllable to-) and matador (stressed on the final syllable -dor) contain no stressmark. [One interesting note here while speaking of Spanish stress; note the necessary stressmarking that is done in only one of the two similar surnames Gonzales and González.]

Talossan's stress rule is perhaps a bit more complicated than the rule in Spanish, but not so much so that you should be intimidated. With a bit of practice, the stress system will begin to come naturally to you. Essentially, if stress is not marked in a Talossan word, stress is determined by the following rules:

• Firstly, if the word ends with one of these four suffixes, you should simply remove that suffix before proceding through the rest of the stress rules: -mint (which is the adverbial suffix, similar to English -ly), -laiset(s) (which is the suffix added to a number to make fractional part, similar to English -th as in fourth, fifth, etc.), -p(h)äts (which is a suffix used to indicate a country name, similar to English -land or -dom, as in Finland, and as seen in the Talossan word regipäts, which means Kingdom), and -sqab(s) (which is similar to the English suffix -hood or -ship or -ness; for example, the Talossan words for goodness and kingship and highness end with this suffix).
  
  
• ALTERNATELY, if the word ends (or looks like it ends with) a plural-ending, analyse the word as if that ending were not there. The endings involved here are -s, -lor, -en when following a consonant, and -x when following eu.
  
  
• With the word-endings mentioned above ignored, stress falls on some part of the word that remains, and its position can be easily determined. First, the trivial case: If the word (or what's left of it when you remove an unanalyzed ending), is only one syllable in length (as is the case, for example, with Finphäts = Finland), then there is no question of stress. That single-syllable may be considered to be stressed, even if it is not marked (so Finphäts is stressed on Fin). What is worth mentioning here, however, is that a very small set of Talossan one-syllable words are stressmarked, in order to distinguish them from other, similar words. The most common example of this is one we have already seen: the word à (= to). Notice that this word need not be stressmarked, since it is only a single-syllable in length. However, it is marked to distinguish it from the Talossan word a (= she). [This is also seen in Spanish, in which unnecessary stressmarking is used to distinguish word-pairs such as sí (= yes) and si (= if).]
  
  
• Otherwise (that is, for determination of stress on multi-syllable words), "default" stress falls on the final "strong" vowel (or the diphthong that this vowel appears within) of the word. Vowels that are not strong are those in these "weak" word-endings:
  • any single vowel (for example, -e and -o are weak-vowel endings);
    
  • -a and -eu, including any single vowel that either of these immediately follows (for example, -oa, -eu, and -ieu);
    
  • -i or -ic, including any single vowel that follows either of these (for example, -ic, -ia, -ici and -ica);
    
  • -ent, including any i or u that it immediately follows (that is, -ent, -ient, and -uent), or
    
  • -er.
  
  
• If no vowel or diphthong is identified by the above rule, the initial syllable of the word is stressed. Technically, this rule covers the case of single-syllable words, but also allows for words like mici (= crumbs) to be spelled without the use of stressmarks.

Remembering the list of "unstressed endings" and "weak-vowel endings" is really the most difficult part of Talossan's stress rule, but once you begin using the language, you will get a "feel" for it and will find yourself "naturally" knowing which word-endings are left unstressed.

Let's see some examples, so you can get an idea of what all of this means:

• xhurnal (= journal, newspaper). The final vowel in this word is strong, so stress falls on the vowel a.
  
• xhurnalatsch (= tabloid newspaper). The final vowel (a) is also strong here, so the final syllable of this word is stressed.
  
• cüfter (= clemency). Here the ending -er is weak, so the final strong vowel is ü, so the initial syllable of cüfter is stressed.
  
• comica (= comedy). Here -ica is a weak ending, meaning that the word is stressed on the vowel o as it is the final strong vowel.
  
• Sveiria (= Sweden). The ending -ia is weak, and so the final strong vowel here is the first i, so the word is stressed on the diphthong containing that letter: ei.
  
• iraschença (= anger). The final strong vowel here is the vowel e.
  
• cüzin (= cousin) and cüzina (= female cousin) are both stressed on the vowel i.
  
• patreu (= father) is stressed on the vowel a.
  
• patreux (= fathers) is also stressed on the vowel a. This is because the -x is not considered when determining stress, leaving the weak-ending -eu.
  
• Zecemvar (= December) is stressed on the vowel a.
  
• cunsequamint (= consequently) ends with the unstressed ending -mint, and after removing this ending (giving cunsequa), we see that this word is stressed on the vocalic e, since ua is a weak vowel ending.
• regipäts (= kingdom) is stressed on the vowel e because the word-ending -päts is ignored, and the i in the remaining fragment regi- is then recognized as weak.
  
• regipätsilor (= kingdoms) is stressed on the vowel ä, since -lor is an unanalyzed, and ä is the final strong vowel in the remaining fragment regipätsi. That is, although both -päts and -lor are unstressed endings, only the second of these actually ends the word and therefore only it is relevant when determining stress.
• osprei (= after) is stressed on its final syllable, because only the final i is weak, leaving e as the final strong vowel, and so the diphthong containing that vowel (that is, the diphthong ei) is stressed.
• seifetziua (= week) is stressed on the diphthong iu, because the final strong vowel is i (since the two vowels in the ending -ua are weak, by rule).
• glici (= clever [plural]), vlici (= shellfish [plural]), and snici (= sniffles) are all stressed on their first syllable, since all their vowels are in the weak ending -ici.

Affixes (Suffixes and Prefixes)

This may seem like a strange time to discuss prefixes and suffixes. After all, we are not quite done discussing stress, but we'll get back to that in a minute. The reason I wanted to cover prefixes and suffixes here is because, as you just learned, a number of Talossan word-endings are naturally "unstressed". Also, some affixes are examples of another subject we have been concerned with here and there in these first lectures, irregular pronunciation.

It may help you to remember that a pluralized word is almost always stressed on the same syllable as its singular form. Other than the word-ending -pätsilor, there are only six words that have irregular plural forms that do not follow this rule; obviously in these cases, either the singular or plural form is stressmarked to indicate the irregular stress. One of these is is cióvec (= man) which has the irregular plural form cioveci. In this case, not only does stress shift one syllable to the right in the plural form, but cioveci is also one of the very few irregularly pronounced words in Talossan -- the final i is silent, so the word cioveci is pronounced as if it is spelled ciovetsch.

Second, the weak-vowel word-ending -ent is very common since it used in conjugating any verb to the first- or third-person plural (the we or they) sense. For example, the verb parlarh (= to talk) conjugates to parlent (= we talk or they talk) and parlevent (= we or they talked) and parlarhent (= we or they will talk). We will obviously discuss verb conjugation much more later in the course, but for now simply note that this word ending -ent is among those that are naturally unstressed.

Remember that before identifying any weak vowels to determine which syllable should be stressed, four specific word-endings are completely removed from the word. The suffixes that are completely ignored when analyzing stress are common and specialized in their use, making them easy to remember. One of these is -laiset, which is like the English -th ending used to form ordinal numbers; for example, vuitlaiset (= eighth). This suffix is often heard pronounced clipped, as simply -laist. Another of these is -mint, which is like the English -ly suffix used to form adverbs from adjectives. For example, actual becomes actualmint (= actually). Another unstressed ending that is easy to keep in mind is the suffix -päts (often seen using consonant mutation as -phäts); it is used similarly to the English suffix -land or -dom. For example, Finphäts (= Finland), Ispäts (= Iceland) and regipäts (= kingdom). The unstressed suffix -sqab may be easy to remember as being unstressed once you know that it is equivalent to the English suffixes -ness and -ship (holding of an office). For example, the Talossan word ben (= good) becomes bensqab (= goodness), and Seneschalsqab (= prime ministership).

It is worth noting that a few specific prefixes and suffixes are irregularly pronounced. Perhaps the most important of these to know about is the word-ending -ind which is used like the English -ing ending to create present participles. For example, the verb parlarh (= to speak or talk) has the present participle form parlind (= speaking). This word-ending is not pronounced as it looks, but instead as if it were -ant. Unlike in English, the Talossan present participle can be pluralized, and this same exceptional pronunciation rule applies. For example, in both el cióvec parlind (= the talking man) and els cioveci parlinds (= the talking men), the letters ind are pronounced as if spelled ant.

Historical note: This irregular pronunciation of the -ind word-ending was actually a result of a dispute between users of Talossan in the 1980's. Some formed the present participle by pronouncing (and spelling) it -ind while others formed it by both pronouncing and spelling it -ant. The two groups agreed to compromise on the one spelling with the other pronunciation.

Another irregularity of affix pronunciation is one we have already discussed, and that is the fact that the letter x is pronounced as the English "sh" when it appears in the plural form endings -eux and -éux. Another exception to keep in mind is that the prefix scurz- (which means "short") is pronounced as if it is spelled scurtz-. Finally, another very common ending that is irregularly pronounced is the word ending -schti (which is the plural ending for words ending in -scù, -x, and -sc). In this word-ending, the final letter i is not pronounced, so that computex (= computer) has the plural form computeschti, in which the final letter i is not pronounced.

Talossan has a robust collection of prefixes and suffixes. We won't go into them in any more detail here than we have already, but you may want to look at the lists of common prefixes and suffixes that are given on this Webpage and this Webpage. In fact, you may have realized another suffix was involved in one of the examples we used earlier. The word xhurnalatsch (= tabloid newspaper) was formed by suffixing xhurnal (= newspaper) with the suffix -atsch (meaning "bad").

PART 2: SYLLABLE SEPARATION

As we've seen over the last couple weeks, Talossan has a number of multi-letter combinations, and we've discussed how this poses a challenge in written Talossan when one part of the combination should be pronounced in one syllable, and the other part in another syllable.

For example, the English word ruin cannot be transliterated directly into Talossan as simply ruin, since ui is a diphthong, so a Talossan word ruin would be a single syllable, while the English word is spoken in two distinct syllables. As another example, the English word dragnet also could not be transliterated simply, since the combination gn would indicate pronunciation of the Spanish ñ (as in English canyon and onion).

When the letter combination to be separated is a set of vowels (a diphthong such as ui), there are three methods that can be used to indicate syllabic separation. When the letter combination is a set of consonants (such as gn), then there is only one method that can be used. Let's discuss the three methods of separating diphthongs first, some of which you have already seen:

• When the vowel to be separated from a diphthong appears in "default" stress position, explicitly stress marking that vowel may be done to indicate the separation. This only works, however, if the stress mark does not have the effect of indicating that the entire diphthong is being stressed. For examle, the word sunía (= hallucination) is stressed on the vowel i, which is separated from what would otherwise be the diphthong ia by the stress mark. Notice that this only worked because the stressmarked form of the diphthong ia is iá and not ía. In a word like ruin, then, this method would not be useful, and one of the methods below would need to be used.
  
  
• If one of the letters in the diphthong to be separated is the letter i, then the separation can be indicated by adding a trema, or diaeresis mark (two-dots, identical to the umlaut) over the i. This is also done in English, in words like naïve, the diaeresis indicating that the word is not pronounced as nave or nive, but that the i stands in its own syllable, so that the word is pronounced nah-eev. For example, consider the Talossan word fruïtz (= fruit). Here, what would be the diphthong ui is separated into two syllables, so that this word is pronounced "fru-eetz". Notice that the word is still not stress marked, so stress falls, by default, on the (now separated) letter i, meaning that the second and final syllable is stressed. Notice also that the word could not be written fruítz, since uí indicates a stressed vowel combination (diphthong).
  
  
• If neither of the above methods can be used, then the separation of a diphthong into two syllables is indicated in writing by inserting an apostrophe between the components of the diphthong. There are only a handful or words in Talossan that must resort to this method. One of them is enfe'uçarh (= to set afire). Here, the two-syllable word féu (= fire) has been both prefixed (with en-) and suffixed (with -çarh), and the suffix takes default stress. So to indicate that the integrated word does not contain the diphthong eu, an apostrophe is necessary in writing. Most of the other words in Talossan that use apostrophes to separate what would be diphthongs are formed by prefixes as well. For example, co'aliziun (= coalition), re'unitarh (= to reunite), and retro'actïu (= retroactive). In these cases, a hyphen can also be used instead of an apostrophe, because just as in English (pre-school, post-mortem), hyphenization can be used at prefix boundaries in Talossan. (Some persons choose to use this method in preference to the ï method listed above, preserving the umlaut only for use to indicate the vowels ä, ö, and ü. Such persons would use fru'itz rather than fruïtz)

When the issue is the separation of a group of consonants (instead of vowels), then the only available method is the third one discussed above -- use of an apostrophe. Once again, the number of words in which this type of separation is called for is limited to only a few dozen, and again, many are words formed by prefixes, where a hyphen could be used instead -- for example, pan'naziunal (= pan-national), út'traval (= workout), and inter'raçal (= inter-racial). But for some words, such as adeg'nás (= dirty white color), t'svaçeir (= racket, for tennis, etc.), mag'noglh (= magnolia), and fil'harmonic (= philharmonic), an apostrophe is needed to separate a consonant group that would otherwise indicate an alternate pronunciation.

Other Uses of the Apostrophe

Before finishing this lecture, a word or two should be said about the fact that in addition to its use (in a limited number of words, as discussed above) to indicate the separation of what would be a diphthong or consonant combination, the apostrophe is used in Talossan to indicate elision and contraction.

We have seen this in action already, with such examples as com'estás't, which is a contraction of come (= how) with estás. Such cases are much like English examples like you're and I'm, meaning that the apostrophe indicates the removal of a vowel sound at the beginning or end of one of two words, and the contraction of the two words into one. The result is a construction where the apostrophe appears between a vowel and a consonant. This dropping of vowels is known as "elision".

Notice that in this use of the apostrophe, what would have been multiple syllables is often combined into a single syllable. This is the opposite effect from the use of the apostrophe to separate diphthongs and consonant combinations, discussed above.

One extremely common word in Talossan that is an example of elision and contraction is c'e (= it is; so you may think of is as very much like English it's). This is not only a contraction of two words, but also a drastic shortening of one of them. The word c'e is equivalent to ça (= it) + esta (= is). Notice, though, that these two words have nearly been completely lost in the creation of c'e. The ç has turned to a hard c, and esta has been shortened to simply e. Not only that, but by juxtaposing the c with an e (even with the apostrophe separation), the c becomes pronounced as "ch" in English chair. So the Talossan word c'e is pronounced as English "cheh" or even "chay".

Talossan also can (and often does) use c'e where in English a simple "is" would suffice. That is, an English sentence such as "the lion is yellow" could be translated as either la liun isch vermel (= the lion is yellow) or as la liun c'e vermel (= the lion, it is yellow). However, c'e cannot be used in this way if the subject is a person. That is, va figlheu c'e feliceu (= my son, it is happy) is improper; you must say va figlheu isch feliceu (= my son is happy).

Before leaving this topic, here are a couple more interesting and important facts about c'e. First of all, this common word is not only used for "it is", but also anytime you want to say "this is" or "that is". Just as English accepts both "does not" and "doesn't", the longer, uncontracted forms are also available in Talossan: ça isch (= it is) and acest isch and aceasta isch (both = this or that is). The other thing to notice is that yes, esta (which was one of the two words contracted long ago to form c'e) is no longer the word for "is". Although many of the tenses of the verb estarh (= to be) have retained the est- form, the word used for third-person subjects like it and this and that (as well as for he and she and the second-person subject you) is isch. We saw this in the example Va num isch ______ (= my name is ______), which could also have been Va num c'e ______. The word c'e is therefore a preserved relic of an older Talossan form, when esta had not yet been displaced by isch.

Well, we have gone a little far afield here at the end of this lecture, discussing a specific word and its use. This is probably indicative of where the course is going from here, since with the conclusion of this lecture, you now have a complete picture of written Talossan, and we can advance into topics such as the meanings of words, how to form sentences, conjugate verbs, and use the various tenses, voices, and aspects of Talossan (don't be intimidated if you don't know what some of those things mean).

As always, I am available for (and would welcome) questions about this lecture or any of the earlier ones. If anything is unclear, please let me know.

I will be posting your assignments for this week in the next few days.