User talk:177.40.105.228

Rhymes

Must be stressed on the last syllable. It's MAS-o-chist, not mas-o-CHIST. Equinox ◑ 21:12, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

How is somebody supposed to tell where the stress goes? --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 21:19, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

What do you mean? It's just the syllable that takes the "weight" of the word when you say it out loud, e.g. CAR-rot-cake but ap-ple-PIE. Equinox ◑ 21:44, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I say AP-ple-pie. —CodeCat 21:46, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I picked those examples because I saw them contrasted in a linguistic paper as mysterious/inexplicable behaviour of stress within compounds. I'd only say AP-ple-pie in something like apple-pie bed. Anyhow, you are still able to determine your stress pattern by saying it aloud! Equinox ◑ 22:00, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

No, you can’t. The stress isn’t somehow inherited in the word, it depends on the speaker. What do you mean by ‘weight?’ Pitch? --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 22:19, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

It's definitely a real thing. I studied it for some time. Stress (linguistics). Maybe it would help to think about poetic meter, like Shakespeare's iambic pentameter: "de-DUM-de-DUM-de-DUM-de-DUM-de-DUM"? Yes, it varies between speakers, but still each single speaker has his/her own real, measurable stress: the fact that you say "tomAYto" and I say "tomAHto" doesn't mean that pronunciation isn't a real thing. Equinox ◑ 22:25, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Stop strawmanning me. You know what I meant. --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 23:30, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

No, that was a genuine honest answer. No malice. I don't know what else to say except that there are plenty of books out there you can study. Equinox ◑ 23:31, 23 May 2016 (UTC)