Universals Archive

Possible counterexamples: Campa (Arawak): possibly lacks stress accent and instead uses feature ‘intensity’ [see also more recent descriptions of Campa languages];Nimboran (Trans-New Guinea), Sarangani Manobo (Southern Philippine, Western Malayo-Polynesian), Tahltan (Athabaskan), Yuma (Hokan): possibly genuine exceptions, although multiple primary stress in these languages sometimes even on adjacent syllables, only occur under well-defined exceptional circumstances;Hawaiian (Oceanic, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian): dominant penultimate stress and in addition stress on every long vowel;Southeast Ambrym (Oceanic, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian): stress evenly spread over two or possibly more syllables [“bisyllabic major words are stressed on the first syllable if the second is short; otherwise stress is variable or constant through both syllables” (Parker 1968: 90)];languages with stress on every long vowel or on every vowel preceding a consonant cluster etc. are not considered to have stress accent (which is cumulative) (Hyman 1977: 38-39 with references to K. Pike & Kindberg 1956, E. Pike 1974 for discussion of ‘multiple stress.’)

Accent = phonetic features occurring just once or at most once in the phonological word, with cumulative or demarcative function (Greenberg & Kaschube 1976).