Re: OT: Syllabic Stress in English

[Dennis <ixohoxi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

	Thanks for reminding me of this!  I read a long time
ago that English has compound nouns, shown to be such
by the stress pattern, but not written as such, as it
would be in German.

Dennis

"R. Brzustowicz" wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 24 Jan 2001, Dan Moonhawk Alford wrote:
> 
> > Good summary, Dennis. One missed is Noun-Noun compounds, such as "políce
> > dog" vs. an Adjective-Noun such as "iron gate." Note the low stress on "dog"
> > vs. the high stress on "gate." This is a particularly interesting
> > suprasegmental contrast because it's so unconscious with English speakers
> > and hard to bring up to consciousness.
> >
> > warm regards, moonhawk
> 
> And in fact if "Iron Gate" were the name of a scandal (cf
> Watergate> File Gate, Nanny Gate, etc) the pronunciation would shift
> to the former model.
> 
> I have the impression that there are dialects of American English in
> which this distinction is not conserved, or handled differently -- I
> seem to remember people from New York City doing so, but I can't
> think of any examples off-hand.
> 
> Richard B