Editing Spanish language (section)

=== Prosody ===
Spanish is classified by its [[Isochrony|rhythm]] as a [[isochrony#syllable timing|syllable-timed language]]: each syllable has approximately the same duration regardless of stress.<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Cressey|1978|p=152}}</ref><ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Abercrombie|1967|p=98}}</ref>

Spanish [[intonation (linguistics)|intonation]] varies significantly according to dialect but generally conforms to a pattern of falling tone for declarative sentences and wh-questions (who, what, why, etc.) and rising tone for [[Yes–no question|yes/no questions]].<ref>{{cite book |author=John B. Dabor |title=Spanish Pronunciation: Theory and Practice |edition=3rd |publisher=Holt, Rinehart and Winston |year=1997 |chapter=Ch. 7}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.auburn.edu/academic/liberal_arts/foreign/Spanish/FLSP0501/dalvofile.html |title=John B. Dalbor's Voice Files to Accompany ''Spanish Pronunciation'' |publisher=Auburn.edu |access-date=20 August 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120308071525/http://www.auburn.edu/academic/liberal_arts/foreign/Spanish/FLSP0501/dalvofile.html |archive-date=8 March 2012}}</ref> There are no syntactic markers to distinguish between questions and statements and thus, the recognition of declarative or interrogative depends entirely on intonation.

Stress most often occurs on any of the last three syllables of a word, with some rare exceptions at the fourth-to-last or earlier syllables. Stress tends to occur as follows:<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Eddington|2000|p=96}}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=January 2021}}
* in words that end with a [[monophthong]], on the penultimate syllable
* when the word ends in a [[diphthong]], on the final syllable.
* in words that end with a consonant, on the last syllable, with the exception of two grammatical endings: {{lang|es|-n}}, for third-person-plural of verbs, and {{lang|es|-s}}, for plural of nouns and adjectives or for second-person-singular of verbs. However, even though a significant number of nouns and adjectives ending with {{lang|es|-n}} are also stressed on the penult ({{lang|es|joven}}, {{lang|es|virgen}}, {{lang|es|mitin}}), the great majority of nouns and adjectives ending with {{lang|es|-n}} are stressed on their last syllable ({{lang|es|capitán}}, {{lang|es|almacén}}, {{lang|es|jardín}}, {{lang|es|corazón}}).
* Preantepenultimate stress (stress on the fourth-to-last syllable) occurs rarely, only on verbs with [[clitic]] pronouns attached (e.g. {{lang|es|guardándoselos}} 'saving them for him/her/them/you').

In addition to the many exceptions to these tendencies, there are numerous [[minimal pair]]s that contrast solely on stress such as {{lang|es|sábana}} ('sheet') and {{lang|es|sabana}} ('savannah'); {{lang|es|límite}} ('boundary'), {{lang|es|limite}} ('he/she limits') and {{lang|es|limité}} ('I limited'); {{lang|es|líquido}} ('liquid'), {{lang|es|liquido}} ('I sell off') and {{lang|es|liquidó}} ('he/she sold off').

The orthographic system unambiguously reflects where the stress occurs: in the absence of an accent mark, the stress falls on the last syllable unless the last letter is {{angle bracket|n}}, {{angle bracket|s}}, or a vowel, in which cases the stress falls on the next-to-last (penultimate) syllable. Exceptions to those rules are indicated by an acute accent mark over the vowel of the stressed syllable. (See [[Spanish orthography]].)