Arêndron Prosody

Stress

Stress is phonemic in Arêndron; a given word always has the stress in the same place, except when the speaker deliberately breaks the pattern by emphasising a particular syllable (and except for one general rule, given below). The location is given by the following rules:

• Single-morpheme words nearly always stress the penultimate syllable. The most important exceptions are the number-names daiu, hwarê and ratei.
• Compound words stress the stressed syllable of their last element, unless this is also the last syllable of the whole word, in which case the stressed syllable of the penultimate element is stressed instead. For example, Braxinash (from braxin-ash, “goat-day”, a day of the week) stresses “bra”, not “ash”.
• Stress in inflected words may be on the penultimate, third-last or last syllable, depending on the particular inflection (though the last syllable is never stressed in words with more than two). The behaviour of each inflection with regard to stress is described on the relevant morphology page.
• In a string of one-syllable words, the “content” words tend to be stressed and the grammatical function-words to be unstressed.

However, the general rule, which overrides the above, is that two adjacent syllables cannot both be stressed unless separated by a pause of a comma or greater. Where this would happen, the first word (which will always have just two syllables; longer words cannot stress the last syllable) moves its stress to its first syllable. For example, ŋastê “I like” is normally stressed on the second syllable (in accordance with the rules for the behaviour of the -ê first-person inflexion); in the sentence ŋastê kleissa “I like milk” both words are stressed on their first syllables.

Stressed syllables in Arêndron are characterised by an increase in volume, accompanied by a pitch excursion; typically, the last stressed vowel of an intonation group is higher in pitch than the surrounding syllables, while previous stressed syllables are lower. Other intonation patterns exist as well; see below. Finally, short vowels in unstressed syllables are often noticeably reduced, or pronounced closer to a neutral vowel, than their stressed counterparts.

Arêndron is a stress-timed language; in connected speech, the time between any two stressed syllables is roughly constant, even though there may be up to three unstressed syllables intervening, or (in the exceptional case of consecutive one-syllable “content” words) none at all.

Intonation

The most basic intonation pattern is that described above: stressed syllables are lower in pitch than surrounding unstressed syllables, except for the last stressed syllable in an intonation group, which is higher. If the last syllable of an utterance is stressed, it takes a high falling tone. This pattern, when used for declarative sentences, is the most neutral and conveys nothing special about the speaker's mood.

Within the sentence, a particular word can be emphasised by giving its stressed syllable higher instead of lower pitch, to indicate that this word is the focus of the sentence – in other words, that it carries the new, most important information. If the word to be emphasised already has higher pitch, this distinction is not made.

If an utterance contains only one stressed syllable (as, for instance, the answer to a question might), this is normally low; making it high instead adds a degree of forcefulness.

Questions typically have a different intonation pattern, with the last stressed syllable of the question being low instead of high. If this intonation is used on a statement, it indicates uncertainty or that the speaker is putting the statement forward as something to be confirmed. Conversely, using the normal statement intonation pattern on a question indicates confidence, that the speaker already knows the answer and is asking the question as a rhetorical device.

Imperatives have their own characteristic intonation pattern, with the stressed syllable of the verb being high and, if it ends the utterance, staying high instead of falling. The higher the pitch, the more forceful the command. If the verb has another syllable after the stress, this will also be high, but if the imperative sentence contains further words after the verb, these follow the normal statement intonation. When a declarative sentence is given imperative intonation, this indicates that the speaker is very insistent about the facts he is presenting.

Sarcasm also has its own characteristic pattern: as in a normal statement, the last stressed syllable of the intonation group is high, but, in each intonation group with more than one stress, the part preceding the last stressed syllable starts high and falls throughout, ending on a low falling tone on the penultimate stressed syllable. Instead, the use of a level mid tone up to the last stressed syllable conveys a lack of interest or enthusiasm.

Exclamations are characterised by a very high pitch, higher even than for imperatives, and especial loudness on the first stress, followed by a sudden fall.