Proparoxytone and paroxytone stress in Romance
In a nutshell, proparoxytone stress (accent on ante-penultimate syllable) moved one place forward to the penultimate syllable (paroxytone). Lots of big words about nothing, as is so often the case in areas of specialist academic study: paroxytones occurred on the Hispanic peninsula and in French, where other Romance languages retained the proparoxytone form; here are a few examples to clarify things:
| Vulgar Latin |
Italian |
Rumanian |
Vulgar Latin |
French |
Spanish |
English |
| hómines |
uómini |
oámeni |
homínes |
hommes |
hombres |
men |
| duódecim |
dódici |
duodécim |
douze |
doce |
twelve |
|
| fráxinum |
frássino |
frásinu |
fraxínum |
frêne |
fresno |
ash |
| péctinem |
péttene |
péttine |
pectínem |
peigne |
peine |
comb |