other Romance language(s) word stress

Metamorfose · Post by **Metamorfose** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 12:46 pm

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

jotham · Post by **jotham** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 5:01 am

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.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 8:24 am

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.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 10:00 am

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

jotham · Post by **jotham** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 2:33 pm

And maybe use a hyphen: Romance-language word stress.
Or do you do that with capitals? I forget.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 5:04 pm

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?