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other Romance language(s) word stress
Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 12:46 pm
by Metamorfose
Given the sentence:
The terms oxitone, paroxytone and proparoxytone suit well to describe other Romance language(s) word stress.
By 'other Romance language(s) word stress' I mean 'word stress in other Romance languages'. As English adjectives are said to not vary and the word languages function as an adjective, so can I make language plural in this case or do I have to rearrange the sentence?
José
Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 5:01 am
by jotham
I think you may have too many nouns stacked up. I would rather say "...to describe the word stress in other Romance languages" like you mentioned. If you have to do it your way, which doesn't sound quite right, I would use possessive: describe other Romance languages' word stress. I might need to look at all the context to verify that meaning isn't changed.
Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 8:24 am
by metal56
I wouldn't use the possessive "'s" in such a case.
The terms oxitone, paroxytone and proparoxytone are well suited to describing word stress in other Romance languages.
Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 10:00 am
by lolwhites
I can see why people would prefer in/of other Romance languages, in accordance with the principle that we prefer to use 's with animate things rather than inanimate ones. However, I wouldn't have a problem with the genitive if the sentence were spoken. I do have a problem with the -s it being written in brackets. Either use an apostrophe, or leave the -s out altogether and make it a compound noun, as in:
stress
word stress
Romance language word stress
Posted: Wed Jan 17, 2007 2:33 pm
by jotham
And maybe use a hyphen: Romance-language word stress.
Or do you do that with capitals? I forget.
Posted: Wed Jan 17, 2007 5:04 pm
by metal56
jotham wrote:And maybe use a hyphen: Romance-language word stress.
Or do you do that with capitals? I forget.
Why would you need a hyphen?