Stress is something that is often talked about when learning languages. There are two different kinds of stress that we are concerned with here. One is the stress we place on a syllable in a word. I will refer to that as stress. The second kind of stress, is the stress we place on a particular word in a sentence to emphasize our meaning. I will call that emphasis.
Here are a few examples of emphasis to show what I'm talking
about.
I will put the emphasized word in upper case.
'Please open the DOOR' The person speaking wants
the door opened, not the
window or the box or any thing else
'Please OPEN the door' Here we know that it's
the door that should get the action
but now the person is making sure that we know they
want us to open it.
'PLEASE open the door We have been fiddling around
while the speaker was
holding four bags of groceries.
We place emphasis in a sentence the same way we put stress in a word; We say it with a slightly higher tone of voice.
In the case of Ok, the stress comes on the second to the
last syllable. (Penultimate).
But how do we handle emphasis? Because it is constructed
out of syllables that have the meaning of words, Ok words would contain
syllables
which would need emphasis as well as stress. If
we put stress and emphasis on two different syllables in the same word,
we wouldn't know which syllable was being emphasized.
We solve the problem by always placing the emphasized syllable in the penultimate position.
Here are some examples. I'll use the same convention of putting the emphasized words in uppercase, then I'll show the Ok translation then I'll give a literal translation
I must go = Jinjagcru (go-I-must)
I MUST go = Jagcrujin (I-must-go)
I must GO = crujinjag (must-go-I) or jagjincru (I-go-must)
Provide GOOD food = Sroodlajimb (provide-good-food)
PROVIDE good food = Jimbsroodla (food-provide-good)
Provide good FOOD = Dlajimbsroo (good-food-provide)
Ok can can arrange the verb subject and object in any way it needs to, because the object is always clearly marked with '-M-'. In the above phrase the object is the syllable -jib- which in this case is -jimb-, 'food'
But, do we always emphasize words? Aren't there times when we don't? Maybe. But something has to go in the penultimate position. So when you're not sure put the object or, barring that, the subject.
Mother went to the store = Wmkflaukjin (storewards-Mother-went)
Here, Wk is in
the dative case so, it takes the -m-. 'Storewards' is just
my quirky way of translating the Dative.
Close the door.= Sloomky (Door-close)
Emphasis and stress is an important aspect of learning
how to put Ok words together. If you pay attention to how you say things,
you will know which word should be your penultimate syllable.