Word stress in Spanish

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Relationship between phonetic form and stress
3. Words that are never stressed in connected speech
4. Adverbs in -mente

1. Introduction
A stressed syllable is one that is pronounced with more energy than an unstressed one and hence is auditorily more prominent. For example, in the word potato it is the second syllable which bears the stress and hence ‘stands out’ acoustically.

The phonetic symbol indicating stress is a small superscripted vertical line ‘ˈ’ placed immediately before the stress-bearing syllable, as in the examples below:

[ˈlaɾɣo] largo ‘long’
[reˈlox] reloj ‘watch’
[ˈin̪teɣɾo] íntegro ‘whole’

The position of the stress in Spanish can play an important role in distinguishing between the different grammatical functions of otherwise identical sequences of sounds. Consider, for example, the phonetic sequence [animo]. Stressing the first syllable, as in [ˈanimo], produces the noun ánimo ‘spirit/excitement’. Stressing the second syllable, [aˈnimo], produces the first person singular present indicative form of the verb animar ‘encourage’. And stressing the final syllable, as in [aniˈmo], delivers the third person singular preterite form of the same verb (written as animó).

2. Relationship between phonetic form and stress
The position of the stress in a word correlates quite well with the word’s phonetic form. The relationship between the two, together with the related issue of when a written acute accent is required, can be stated in the following way:

1. Word forms ending in a vowel or /n/ or /s/ are most commonly paroxytone (i.e. stressed on the penultimate syllable). There are in fact quite a large number of nouns which end in /n/ but are stressed on the final syllable; for example, estación ‘station’, razón ‘reason’ and avión ‘aeroplane’. However, these are outnumbered, at least in terms of their frequency of occurrence, by 3rd person plural verb forms, such as hablan ‘they talk’, fueron ‘they went’ and vendrían ‘they would come’.

2. Word forms ending in a consonant other than /n/ or /s/ are most commonly oxytone (i.e. stressed on the final syllable).

3. According to orthographical convention, word forms whose stress can be predicted from the above rules 1 and 2 (e.g. mano ‘hand’, origen ‘origin’ and concejal ‘councillor’) are written without an accent. Words that diverge from this pattern are written with an acute accent above the vowel letter in the stress-bearing syllable, as in the following examples:
rápido ‘quick’
árbol ‘tree’
jabalí ‘wild boar’
limón ‘lemon’

4. The acute accent is also used to indicate that an /i/ or /u/ that is adjacent to another vowel is realized as a full vowel, viz. [i] or [u] respectively, and not as a semivowel, viz. [j] or [w]:
países ‘countries’
baúl ‘trunk’
hacía ‘he/she was doing’ (compare hacia ‘towards’)

3. Words that are never stressed in connected speech
A word pronounced in isolation always carries a stress but some items lose their stress when used in connected speech. Nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, disjunctive pronouns, numerals and interrogative wh-words (i.e. words like qué, quién, cuándo, cuál etc.) are generally stress-bearing, whether uttered in isolation or in connected speech. In contrast, words that are never stressed include the following:

The definite article:
e.g. [la ˈtʃika] la chica ‘the girl’.

Clitic pronouns:
e.g. [te lo emˈbje] te lo envié ‘I sent it to you’.

Monosyllabic possessive determiners:
e.g. [mi ˈkasa] mi casa ‘my house’.

Most prepositions:
e.g. [ˈesto ˈes para ˈti] esto es para ti ‘this is for you’.

Coordinating conjunctions:
e.g. [ˈpan i ˈletʃe] pan y leche ‘bread and milk’.

The complementizer que:
e.g. [ˈkjeɾo ke te ˈβaʝas] quiero que te vayas ‘I want you to leave’.

Non-interrogative wh-words:
e.g. [la ˈtʃika a kjen selo ˈð̞ixe] la chica a quien se lo dije ‘the girl to whom I said it’.

Note also that the apocopated form un tends not to be stessed when used as the masculine singular form of the indefinite article, but it is stressed if it is used as a numeral.

4. Adverbs in -mente
Adverbs that exhibit the suffix -mente, such as libremente ‘freely’, in principle have two stresses, one on the -mente suffix and one on the stem, in the position in which the base adjective would be stressed if it was pronounced separately. This relates to the fact that the -mente suffix was originally a separate word, descended from the ablative singular form mente of the Latin noun mēns ‘mind’. A vestige of the earlier independent status of mente can be found in the fact that, in formal registers, this suffix is deleted from all but the last of two or more coordinated adverbs, as in the example below:

El juez habló solemne y gravemente.
‘The judge spoke solemnly and gravely.’

Matters are slightly complicated, however, by the fact that if an adverb of this type is uttered in isolation, i.e. as a single intonational phrase, the stressed syllable inside the -mente suffix will appear stronger than the stress which falls on the base adjective. This is due to the operation of the nuclear stress rule, the nuclear stress (or accent) being the most prominent stress within the intonational phrase. In many languages, including Spanish, the nuclear stress falls by default on the last stressed syllable in the intonational phrase. To reflect the stress imbalance resulting from this when a mente-adverb is uttered in isolation, the phonetic symbol for secondary stress – a small subscripted vertical line ‘ˌ’ placed immediately before the relevant syllable – can be used to mark the apparently weaker stress on the base adjective, as in the examples below:

[miseˌɾaβleˈmen̪te] miserablemente ‘miserably’
[feˌliðˈmen̪te] felizmente ‘happily’
[ˌrapið̞aˈmen̪te] rápidamente ‘quickly’

On the other hand, if the adverb is embedded inside a larger intonational phrase, then the stress imbalance disappears. In the example below, the nuclear stress falls on the word feo and so the stress on -mente is not appreciably stronger than the stress of real.

Es realmente feo.
[ˈeɹreˈalˈmen̪teˈfeo]
‘It’s really ugly.’