Accentuation

Quenya accent is pitch-dynamic: the stressed syllable is pronounced louder and with higher pitch. It is limited (can only occur in specific positions) and is not lexical: the accent doesn’t differentiate words like it does in English or Spanish.

General Rule of Accentuation

Possible Positions of the Accent; ‘Long’ and ‘Short’ Syllables

The main accent can only normally fall on one of the two syllables of a word:

• the penult: the second-to-last syllable of a word (x-x-x);
• the antepenult: the third-to-last syllable of a word (x-x-x).

Accentuation is determined strongly by the length of the penult syllable of a word. For the purposes of accentuation:

• a syllable is long if it is closed, or contains a long vowel or a diphthong;
• a syllable is short if it is open and contains a short vowel.

Note

Such pairs as ty, qu, hy, hw can be considered as a single or a double consonant for this purpose (→ PE19/60).

For vowel quantity (long/short), → 1.7.

Penultimate Law

Rule 1

The regular main stress falls on a second mora from the end, not counting the last syllable.

If the antepenult is long, it takes two morae:

• closed syllable: lótesse — lo-o-[t-e₂-s₁]-se
• long vowel: untúpa — un-[t-u₂-u₁]-pa
• diphthong: alasaila — a-la-[s-a₂-i₁]-la

If the antepenult is short, it takes one mora:

• termaruva — ter-[ma₂-ru₁]-va

Consequently, in words of one or two syllables the stress is always prototonic:

• elen — [e₁]-len, vala — [va₁]-la, óre — [o₂-o₁]-re

Exceptions

Exception 1

A word was stressed on the last syllable if it was:

• a verb in imperative (→ PE22/139): quetá — kwe-‘ta
• a functor on ⸱-ai: cenai — ke-‘naj

Exception 2

If by Rule 1 the stress should fall on a first vowel of hiatus, the stress shifts forward (→ PE12/26):

• Lómeanor — ‘lo-o₃-[me₂-a₁]-‘nor
• But naturally it didn’t happen if the syllable was already initial: tie — ‘ti₁-e

Exception 3

Weak nouns of second declension keep their stress pattern despite the lack of rhythmic lengthening (→ PE21/41):

• Orome — [‘o₂-ro₁]-ˌme; Oromèo — ‘o-[ro₂-‘me₁]-o

Exception 4

Certain prefixes don’t take on stress (→ PE19/64):

• ovèa — o-[‘ve₁]-a

Exception 5

Recognized compounds kept independent stress position (→ XI/407):

• losselie — los-se-[‘li₁]-e (not los-[‘se₂-li₁]-e)

Secondary Stress

Rule 2

The secondary stress is placed on alternate syllables in either direction from the main stress (→ PE19/57).

• Calaciryanen — ˌca-la-‘cir-ya-ˌnen

Rule 3

Initial syllable received secondary stress (→ RGEO/60):

• ómaryo — ˌo-o-‘mar-yo

Rule 4

Secondary stress that precedes the main stress and is separated from it by one or more syllables and is on either a) initial or b) long syllable is strong (→ PE19/60).

• oromardi — ‘o-ro-‘mar-di

Exceptions

Exception 6

The long syllable or initial syllable attracted secondary stress if they were separated from the main stress (→ PE19/58):

• andafalasse — ‘an-da-fa-[‘la₂-s₁]-se (not an-da-fa-las-se as per Rule 2)

Exception 7

If the initial syllable was light and immediately preceded the main stress, it lost its accent (→ RGEO/60):

• namárie — na-[‘ma-a₂-ri₁]-e

Rhythmic Lengthening

After historic stress shift (@@), the Quenya accent got fixed. As a result, in some inflections to preserve the prosodic pattern, the vowel bearing the secondary accent lengthened and took the main accent instead:

• I’lúvaˌtar — I’lúva’táro (not *‘Ilú’vataˌro)
• ‘máriˌe — ‘mári’éno (not *ˌmá’rieˌno)
• ‘tuluˌva — ‘tulu’váse (not *tu’luvaˌse)

The only notable exception to this is genitive of paroxytone words in partitive plural (@@). By Exception 2, the main accent shifts forward from li:

• ‘mali’norne — ‘mali’norneˌli — ‘malinor’néliˌon or ‘malinor’neliˌon (not *‘maliˌnorne’líon)

In that case, the lengthened vowel would be stressed even by the general rule. Colloquially, it shortened:

• ‘vaniˌma — ‘vani’máliˌon or ‘vani’maliˌon

Pitch and Intonation

Pitch is used to distinguish forms at utterance level only, and not to distinguish lexical items. In utterances of the phonological word pitch may distinguish different functions. In isolation, the main stress is always marked with a high tone. The secondary stress was lower, when equally strong, and low otherwise (→ RGEO/60):

• fal˦-ma˧-lin˥-nar˧
• an˩-[du-u]˥-ne˧

A statement is uttered with a lowering in pitch on its final part (the last word or phrase in the case of long utterance), and a question with a rising pitch (→ PE22/160). In neutral statements the pitch rises until the main stress and then drops, with an overall ascending-falling movement (see Fig. 2.1-2).

Figure 2.1: Pitch contour of a neutral phrase from the recording of Namárie

Figure 2.2: Pitch contour of a neutral phrase from the recording of Namárie, showing L% boundary

Emphasis on an element (a phonologicla word or phrase) is signalled by an ascending pitch on that element (see Fig. 2.3, → PE22/161)

Figure 2.3: Pitch contour of emphatic phrase from the recording of Namárie

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