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Stress in compounds with two constituents
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Dutch compounds can be classified into four categories:

This classification is based on the word class of the compound, which in turn is determined by the syntactic head of the compound, i.e. its rightmost constituent.

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While in nominal compounds, stress is usually on the first constituent (strong-weak pattern), there is some more systematic variation in other types of compounds: adjectival compounds and verbal compounds show both patterns. While it has been argued that adjectival compounds have default stress on the right-hand constituent (at least in predicative position; Langeweg 1988, Visch 1989, Trommelen and Zonneveld 1989, Backhuys 1989), the position of stress in verbal compounds is largely dependent on whether the relevant verbs are separable or not: non-separable verbs have stress on the right-hand constituent, separable verbs on the left-hand one. The members of the small group of prepositional compounds are always stressed on their right-hand constituent.

References
  • Backhuys, Kees-Jan1989Adjectival compounds in DutchBennis, H. & Kemenade, A. van (eds.)Linguistics in the NetherlandsDordrecht1-10
  • Langeweg, S. J1988The stress system of DutchUniversity of LeidenThesis
  • Trommelen, Mieke & Zonneveld, Wim1989Stress, Diphthongs, r in DutchH. Bennis & A. van Kemenade (eds.)Linguistics in the Netherlands 1989DordrechtForis
  • Visch, Ellis1989The rhythm rule in English and DutchUtrecht UniversityThesis
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