- What is the accent?
- Prosodic accent and spelling accent
- Rules of accentuation in Spanish
- Accent or tune
- Accent on poetry
- Musical accent
We explain what the accent is and the rules of accentuation in Spanish. Also, the differences between prosodic and spelling accent.
What is the accent?
The word "accent" is used in many different areas, generally related to the language. Your most common sense is like synonymous from "tilde", an orthographic sign used in Spanish (and in other languages), and that has the shape of a small oblique line, in the right to left direction, placed on a vowel: á, é, í, ó and ú. Depending on the language, there may also be other forms of accent.
However, this term is also used to describe other aspects of grammar and language. It also applies to other areas of the culture as the poetry and the music, and even as part of some image rhetoric, with the sense of emphasizing something: "the boss put the accent on absences". In this case, the word "accent" has another meaning.
The word accent comes from Latin accentus, word formed by the prefix ac- (a transformation of ad), which means "towards", and the verb canere, "sing". So it could be interpreted as something that is close to singing, that is, to the appropriate sound.
Prosodic accent and spelling accent
The prosodic accent is the highest intensity intonation given to certain syllables of a word, to help segment it and distinguish it from other words that have the same morphology. Its name comes from prosody, that is, musicality.
Said like this, it is the same thing that is normally called in Spanish the stressed syllable, and that may or may not be represented graphically. It is a certain "sound relief" or way of pronunciation of the words.
This accent is always present in words, but only on certain occasions is it accompanied by an orthographic or graphic accent, that is, by a tilde. For this, Spanish has fixed rules, depending on the place of the stressed syllable in the word and in some cases, its ending.
In any case, the appearance of an orthographic accent fulfills a differentiating task: two words are spelled the same, but are pronounced differently (prosodic accent), so some must bear a mark in the writing, which would be the accent, to indicate to the reader how to pronounce it.
In this way, it is possible to distinguish words as similar but as different as "circle", "circle" and "circulated", the first being a noun, the second a verb in the first person singular of the present, and the last a verb in the third person singular and past tense. The same occurs with monosyllables such as "yes" and "yes", "more" and "more", or "of" and "give", whose semantic differences are radical.
Rules of accentuation in Spanish
In Spanish, the appearance of the orthographic accent is determined by the place of appearance of the prosodic accent in the word, that is, of its stressed syllable, according to the following criteria:
- Sharp words. In which the prosodic accent is on the last syllable. In this case, the prosodic accent will become the spelling accent as long as the words end in letters n, s or vowel. For example: "Health”, “metal"," Capable ", but:" stress "," sang "," truck "and" Bogotá ".
- Serious words or flat. In which the prosodic accent is on the penultimate syllable. In this case, the prosodic accent will become orthographic whenever the word ends in a consonant other than n Y s. For example: "song", "belly", "beans", "retain", but: "pencil", "ductile", "laser" and "Felix".
- Words esdrújulas. In which the prosodic accent falls on the third to last syllable, and must always be accompanied by a tilde or spelling accent, regardless of its ending. For example: "stereo", "candid", "birds", "eardrum".
- Words sobreesdrújulas. In which the prosodic accent falls on any syllable prior to the third to last. They are exceptional words and are always accentuated. For example: "palely", "tell me".
Accent or tune
It is also said "accent" or "tune" to the particular way of pronouncing typical of a geographic region. In other words, two speakers from two geographic regions different (and sometimes even two social classes different in the same city) will have different ways of intoning, even when they are using the same identical words in the same language.
This variation does not affect the meaning of the words (that is, it is not a lexical or dialectical variant), but is of a musical, prosodic, rhythmic type. Each region of the same country has variations in accent or tune, and these variations are even more extreme if we compare two distant countries within the same country. continent.
Thus, for example, Spanish speakers in Latin America They speak the same language, but with different sound productions, that is, with different accents: the Andean accent, the River Plate, the Caribbean, among others. Each cultural region has its own, shared by the populations that make life there.
This means that in the same country the accent can vary, as it happens between the Argentines of the Río de la Plata and the Argentines of the Andean north, or between the Colombians of the Caribbean coast, those of the Pacific coast and those of the coffee axis.
Accent on poetry
In the traditional language of the poetry, the metric is the structuring of the poems obeying fixed rules of rhyme, in which the number of syllables a must have was determined verse. In the same sense, the accent is the place of the verse in which a musical or prosodic emphasis is made, that is, a certain emphasis that does not modify the spelling of the words.
Thus, depending on its position in the verse, it speaks of:
- Rhythmic accent. Known as constitutive or constitutive accent, it is determined by the model of the verse, maintaining its internal rhythm.
- Extrarhythmic accent. Known as an accessory accent, it is not part of what is required by the model of the verse, but rather breaks or varies its rhythm, generally occupying an interior position.
- Antirhythmic accent. It is the one that occupies the syllable immediately before that of the rhythmic accent, which is why it is known as an antiversal accent, since it breaks the rhyme.
Perhaps it is important to note that these types of rules are no longer in use in contemporary poetry, freed from metrics and rhymes in favor of "free verse."
Musical accent
Similarly, in the language of music, the accent marks certain notes that require special emphasis, or that must be executed in a specific way to express certain senses within the piece.
These emphatic moments can occur in a chord or note, as part of a playing context, or they can be indicated by a sign in the score. Auditively, these accents are perceived as a discharge of energy or a feeling of support, in the sound performance of the piece.