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Kirumb Stress

Summary

Kirumb stress is partly based on part of speech. For most verbs, it is based on the particular inflection. For other words, stress is lexical, though there are general but not infallible guidelines to its placement.

Verbal Stress

In general, verbs are accented on the initial syllable. However, derivative verbs (including statives and futures) are usually stressed on the derivational suffix.

Therefore biróm /"bIru:m/ 'I bear smth.', ijaisha /"IdZAjsxA/ 'I pointed out smth.', but borskóm /bUr"sku:m/ 'I am carrying smth.' and birišóm /bIrI"Su:m/ 'I will carry smth.'

Nonverbal stress

Nonverbal parts of speech were, in the parent language, regularly stressed within the first three syllables, on the farthest-right, heaviest syllable. (In standard notation, 123/123/123L.)

The weight of the syllable is determined by the length of the vowel (a long vowel is heavier than a short one) or by whether it has a coda consonant. K grammarians assert that sonant codas (l, m, n, ŋ, r) do not count for syllable weight, but the evidence on this is unclear.

The protosystem is mainly inherited in Kirumb; however the loss of initial vowels sometimes leaves accent sooner than the early rules dictate.

Thus words like navanos /nA"vAnUs/ 'ninth' from earlier, regular *inawńnos.