[lojban-beginners] Re: Preliminary chapter 1 for Lojban learners

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 11:33 PM,  <MorphemeAddict@wmconnect.com> wrote:
>
> Not marking the stress imposes a default penultimate stress.  There is no
> way to indicate "no stress preference".

A cmevla can be pronounced with any stress pattern you like: you can
even stress more than one syllable in a cmevla or none at all.
Whatever the stress pattern you use, the cmevla is the same cmevla.
The same happens with cmavo (except that with cmavo you have to be
more careful, because if you stress the last syllable you may also
need a pause after it). It is only for brivla that stress is
important, for brivla the stress is part of what defines the word.

Using a default penultimate stress for cmevla is a sensible rule, same
as for cmavo. But it is not obligatory. "PORtugal", "porTUgal",
"portuGAL", "PORtuGAL" and "portugal" are all different ways of
writing the same word. You won't be pronouncing a different word if
you choose a different stress than the one proposed for you.

Given the above, my preference is to never indicate a preferred
stressed for cmevla, and leave the choice to the reader.

mu'o mi'e xorxes