Prosodic system of venezuelan spanish

Abstract

This study is called 'Prosodic System' in order to include both types of Spanish stresses: the prosodic and the 'orthographic'. All content and form words bear some kind of stress because it is a syllable stressed language. Spanish homophone and homographic content words are classified as oxitone words (agudas), paroxitone words (graves / llanas), and proparoxitone words (esdrújulas) by the position of stress in a given syllable. Stress distinguishes tense/time, mood, and person in verbal homographic and homophone words. It also establishes semantic and class oppositions among the pairs 'noun / verb', and 'noun / adjective' in homophones and homographs. This systematic Spanish feature is shown in a table. Some detailed reference to Venezuelan Spanish Intonation is made for two main reasons: (a) stress and intonation are intertwined, (b) intonation complements meaning. Samples of the Venezuelan Spanish Intonation illustrate its use in some common utterances.