In linguistics, a proparoxytone (, ) is a word with stress on the
antepenultimate (third to last) syllable, such as the
English words "cinema" and "operational". Related concepts are
paroxytone
In linguistics, a paroxytone (, ') is a word with stress on the penultimate syllable, that is, the second-to-last syllable, such as the English language, English word ''potáto''.
In English, most words ending in ''-ic'' are paroxytones: ''músic ...
(stress on the penultimate syllable) and
oxytone
In linguistics, an oxytone (; from the , ', 'sharp-sounding') is a word with the stress on the last syllable, such as the English words ''correct'' and ''reward''.
It contrasts with a paroxytone, stressed on the penultimate (second-last) syll ...
(stress on the last syllable).
In English, most nouns of three or more syllables are proparoxytones, except in words ending in ''–tion'' or ''–sion'', which tend to be paroxytones (''operation'', ''equivocation''). This tendency is so strong in English that it frequently leads to the stress on derived words being on a different part of the root. For example, the root photograph gives rise to the nouns photography and photographer, ''family'' → ''familiar'' and ''familial''. (In many dialects of English, the ''i'' in ''family'' is even
deleted entirely, and still has the stress in ''familial'' and ''familiar.'')
In medieval Latin lyric poetry, a ''proparoxytonic'' line or half-line is one where the antepenultimate syllable is stressed, as in the first half of the verse "Estuans intrinsecus , , ira vehementi."
Mentions in literature
Ernst Robert Curtius offers an interesting use of the term in a footnote (Ch. 8, n. 33) of his ''European Literature in the Latin Middle Ages''. He is commenting on this passage from
Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel's didactic poem on grammar:
:
:
Here is Curtius' note:
Sad is the lot of the interjection, for of all the parts of speech it has the lowest place. There is none to praise it." On the way from Latin to French, the penultimate syllable of the proparoxytone succumbed. Mallarmé was so touched by this that he wrote a prose poem on the "Death of the Penultimate" ( in ). It ends: (Eerie, I flee: likely some (no-)one doomed to wear weeds for the explainable second-last.)
See also
*
Barytone
In Ancient Greek grammar, a barytone is a word without any accent on the last syllable. Words with an acute or circumflex on the second-to-last or third-from-last syllable are barytones, as well as words with no accent on any syllable:
*τις ...
*
Oxytone
In linguistics, an oxytone (; from the , ', 'sharp-sounding') is a word with the stress on the last syllable, such as the English words ''correct'' and ''reward''.
It contrasts with a paroxytone, stressed on the penultimate (second-last) syll ...
*
Paroxytone
In linguistics, a paroxytone (, ') is a word with stress on the penultimate syllable, that is, the second-to-last syllable, such as the English language, English word ''potáto''.
In English, most words ending in ''-ic'' are paroxytones: ''músic ...
*
Penult
''Penult'' is a linguistics term for the second-to-last syllable of a word. It is an abbreviation of ''penultimate'', which describes the next-to-last item in a series. The penult follows the antepenult and precedes the ultima. For example, the ...
*
Perispomenon
In Ancient Greek grammar, a perispomenon ( ; ) is a word with a high-low pitch contour on the last syllable, indicated in writing by a tilde diacritic () or an inverted breve accent mark () in native transcriptions with the Greek alphabet, or ...
*
Properispomenon
In Ancient Greek grammar, a perispomenon ( ; ) is a word with a high-low pitch contour on the last syllable, indicated in writing by a tilde diacritic () or an inverted breve accent mark () in native transcriptions with the Greek alphabet, or ...
*
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or Sentence (linguistics), sentence. That emphasis is typically caused ...
Phonology
Ancient Greek
Stress (linguistics)
{{AncientGreek-lang-stub