Stress in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

is functional: to change the placement of

stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...

changes the meaning of a sentence or phrase: for example, ''célebre'' ('famous'), ''celebre'' ('

hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

he/she celebrates'), and ''celebré'' ('I celebrated') contrast only by stress. There is some minor variance between

Spanish dialects Some of the regional varieties of the Spanish language are quite divergent from one another, especially in pronunciation and vocabulary, and less so in grammar. While all Spanish dialects adhere to approximately the same written standard, ...

; a speaker of

Rioplatense Spanish Rioplatense Spanish (), also known as Rioplatense Castilian, is a variety of Spanish spoken mainly in and around the Río de la Plata Basin of Argentina and Uruguay. It is also referred to as River Plate Spanish or Argentine Spanish. It is ...

will pronounce ''boina'' ('beret') as while a speaker of

Colombian Spanish Colombian Spanish (Spanish: ''español colombiano'') is a grouping of the varieties of Spanish spoken in Colombia. The term is of more geographical than linguistic relevance, since the dialects spoken in the various regions of Colombia are quit ...

will pronounce it as .

Transcription

Spanish has only two degrees of stress. In traditional

transcription Transcription refers to the process of converting sounds (voice, music etc.) into letters or musical notes, or producing a copy of something in another medium, including: Genetics * Transcription (biology), the copying of DNA into RNA, the fir ...

, primary stress is marked with an acute accent (´) over the vowel. Unstressed parts of a word are emphasized by placing a

breve A breve (, less often , neuter form of the Latin "short, brief") is the diacritic mark ˘, shaped like the bottom half of a circle. As used in Ancient Greek, it is also called , . It resembles the caron (the wedge or in Czech, in S ...

(˘) over the vowel if a mark is needed, or it is left unmarked.

Position

Stress usually occurs in three positions in Spanish: on the final syllable (

oxytone An oxytone (; from the grc, ὀξύτονος, ', 'sharp-sounding') is a word with the stress on the last syllable, such as the English words ''correct'' and ''reward''. (A paroxytone is stressed on the penultimate (second-last) syllable. A pr ...

, e.g. ''señor, ciudad''), the penultimate syllable (

paroxytone Paroxytone ( el, παροξύτονος, ') is a linguistic term for a word with stress on the penultimate syllable, that is, the second last syllable, such as the English word ''potáto'', and just about all words ending in –ic such as músic ...

, e.g. ''señora, nosotros''), or the antepenultimate syllable (

proparoxytone In linguistics, a proparoxytone ( el, προπαροξύτονος, ) is a word with stress on the antepenultimate (third last) syllable, such as the English words "cinema" and "operational". Related terms are paroxytone (stress on the penultimate ...

, e.g. ''teléfono, sábado''), although in very rare cases, it can come on the fourth-to-last syllable in compound words (see below). Vowel-final words and those ending in ''-s'' or ''-n'' are usually stressed on the penultimate syllable. That accounts for around 80% of Spanish vocabulary. There are almost no Spanish words with antepenultimate stress that have a complex syllable rime in the penult. For example, made-up words such as , and are considered ill-formed by native speakers. There are a few exceptions, such as the Anglicisms and , and the town of Frómista in Spain. The trilled , the palatal nasal , and the palatal lateral are similarly excluded from the final syllable of proparoxytones. Thus 'trawling net' is allowed, but the made-up can be considered ungrammatical. That said, Spanish does have some words containing antepenultimate stress and trills in the final syllable onset, which are typically of onomatopoeic, Basque, or unknown origin: 'pretexts' (onomatopoeic), (a last name of Basque origin), 'type of wasp'. In addition, words that end in a

falling diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...

almost always have final stress: 'tortoise' is allowed but made-up isn't. Some loanwords make an exception: , , . In addition, some of

Chilean Spanish Chilean Spanish ( es, español chileno) is any of several varieties of the Spanish language spoken in most of Chile. Chilean Spanish dialects have distinctive pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and slang usages that differ from those of Stand ...

voseo In Spanish grammar, () is the use of as a second-person singular pronoun, along with its associated verbal forms, in certain regions where the language is spoken. In those regions it replaces , i.e. the use of the pronoun and its verbal fo ...

verb forms end in falling diphthongs but are stressed on the penultimate syllable. For example, 'you were dancing' ends on an unstressed falling diphthong.

Creating contrasts

All Spanish words have at least one stressed syllable when they are used in isolation. The word ''para'' can be a

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

(the singular pronoun form of "stop") or a preposition (in order to, for). When words are used in a phrase the stress can be dropped depending on the part of speech. ''Para el coche'' can mean "stop the car" if the stress remains. If the stress is removed, it means "for the car". Some pairs of stressed and unstressed words are distinguished in writing by using a differential accent: ''sí'' 'yes' (stressed) — ''si'' 'if' (unstressed when used in a phrase). In English, contrasts are made by reducing vowels, changing the

loudness In acoustics, loudness is the subjective perception of sound pressure. More formally, it is defined as, "That attribute of auditory sensation in terms of which sounds can be ordered on a scale extending from quiet to loud". The relation of ph ...

of the word, or changing the intonation of the phrase. For example, ''this is her car'' emphasizes the owner of the car. If the stress is changed to say ''this is her car'' , the emphasis is on showing what object belongs to a specific person. In Spanish, the stress is almost always changed by reordering the words. Using the same example ''este coche es suyo'' emphasizes the owner and ''éste es su coche'' emphasizes the object.

Word stress categories

All Spanish words can be classified into one of four groups based on the position of their stress. If the last syllable is stressed it falls into the '' aguda'' category. ''Aguda'' words generally end in a consonant other than ''n'' or ''s'', or are a conjugated verb that ends in an accented, stressed vowel. If the stress falls on the second to last syllable, it is classified as a '' llana'' or ''grave''. ''Llanas'' typically are words that end in ''n'', ''s'', or a vowel. Any exceptions have a written accent. If the stress is placed on the third to last or the fourth to last syllable, they are categorized as '' esdrújulas'' or ''sobresdrújulas'', respectively. In either of the last two categories, the stressed syllable must be accented to break the rules of the first two categories. No single Spanish word is classified as a ''sobresdrújula'', only compound verbs like ''diciéndonosla'' (''diciendo-nos-la''; telling it to us). While certain adverbs ending in have accent marks before the third syllable, these are not considered . Instead, adverbs in are considered to have two stressed syllables, one in and the other in the adjectival root. For example, 'slowly' is pronounced .

References

External links

* {{cite web, last=Erichson, first=Gerald, title=Stress and Accent Marks, website=About.com: Spanish Language, publisher=About.com, date=2012, url=http://spanish.about.com/od/spanishpronunciation/a/stress_accent.htm Spanish phonology Stress (linguistics)