- What are grave words?
- Grave words without accent
- Serious words with tilde
- Exceptions in grave words
- Grave words or plain words
We explain what serious or paroxysmal words are, how they are accentuated and examples with and without accent marks. Also, the exceptions to the rule.
Most of the words in Spanish are serious.What are grave words?
In the Spanish language, words are divided into syllables. A syllable encompasses a sound specific composed of one or more vowels and one or more consonants. For example, the word "pencil" is made up of "la-" and "piz."
According to the location of the stressed syllable (that is, the one with the greatest emphasis or sound force), words are classified into:
- Sharp words. Those whose last syllable is a tonic.
- Serious words. Those whose third-to-last syllable is a tonic.
- Words esdrújulas. Those whose third to last syllable is a tonic.
- Words sobreesdrújulas. Its stressed syllable is before the third to last.
As in the case that interests us, “pencil”, a grave word is one whose stressed syllable is on the penultimate syllable, so that it is a grave word or plain word, technically known as paroxitone words.
Most of the Spanish words are serious, usually ending in -n or in -s, or in a vowel. As in other types of words, serious words do or do not carry the accent spelling depending on its specific ending.
Grave words without accent
To know if we should accentuate a serious word, just look at its ending.
Grave words that end -n, -s or vowel, which are mostly in Spanish.
For example:
- "Run" (run), "finish" (a-ca-ban), "germ" (ger-men), "disinfect" (dis-in-fec-tan).
- "Pincers" (te-na-zas), "nods" (ca-be-ce-as), "points" (points), "breaks" (rom-pes), "santas" (san-tas) .
- "Looking" (mi-ran-do), "omega" (o-me-ga), "spill" (de-rra-me), "pony" (po-ny),
Serious words with tilde
On the other hand, serious words that do not end in -n, nor in -s, neither in vowel do they have an accent, that is, the rest of the possible cases.
For example:
- “Pencil” (late-piz), “latex” (late-tex), “quorum” (quó-rum), “grass” (ces-ped)
- "Fertile" (fertile), "weak" (weak), "difficult" (difficult), "useful" (useful)
- "Mater" (mater), "laser" (laser), "super" (super-per), "character" (ca-rác-ter)
- "Tree" (tree-bol), "prison" (car-cel), "angel" (an-gel), "baseball" (baseball-bowl)
Exceptions in grave words
There is an exception to the stress rule for grave words, which has to do with the diphthong ia, which requires accentuation to break. Thus, certain grave words such as “María” (Mar-rí-a), “biology”(Bio-lo-gí-a) or“ could ”(po-drí-a) have an accent or accent, despite ending in a vowel.
Grave words or plain words
Depending on the authors consulted, it is possible to find that paroxitone words are called "serious" or "flat", and we must handle both terms as synonyms: there is no difference beyond the nomenclature, that is, the name assigned for its study.