<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">In Swedish, l-by-l acronyms with 3 letters have stress on the lfinal syllable (LFG, USA, PKK, …), whereas l-by-l with two letters have stress on the initial syllable (FN, BG, TT, …). I am currently away from my books, but I beleve someone has written an article about this. I'll check t when I get back home, in mid-August.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Best,</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Jan</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>26 jul 2007 kl. 08.55 skrev David Gil:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Dear all,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I'm interested in patterns of lexical stress in a specific type of acronym -- let's call them letter-by-letter acronyms -- whose pronunciation consists of each letter bearing its own individual name, eg. English US [yu:es], LFG [elefji:], etc.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>(Not all languages have letter-by-letter acronyms, for example Hebrew does not.)</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">In two languages that I'm familiar with, English and Papuan Malay, word stress is commonly or predominantly penultimate; however, letter-by-letter acronyms invariably place the stress on the last syllable, eg. [yu:ES], [elefJI:].<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Is this a coincidence, or is there a general principle at play here?<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>(One might perhaps wish to argue that the final stress is phrasal rather than lexical, but in other respects these acronyms behave like single words.)</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I'd appreciate any comments, data from other languages, and bibliographical references to stress patterns in letter-by-letter acronyms.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Thanks,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">David</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">--<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">David Gil</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Department of Linguistics</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Telephone: 49-341-3550321 Fax: 49-341-3550119</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Email: <A href="mailto:gil@eva.mpg.de">gil@eva.mpg.de</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Webpage:<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN><A href="http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/">http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/</A></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV><BR><BR><DIV> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">________________________________________________________</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Jan Anward</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Professor<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Department of Culture and Communication</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Linköping University</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">581 83 Linköping</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Sweden</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Tel: +46 13 28 40 37</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Fax:+46 13 28 28 10</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><A href="mailto:jan.anward@liu.se">jan.anward@liu.se</A></FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><A href="http://www.liu.se/isk/research/jan/">http://www.liu.se/isk/research/jan/</A></FONT></P> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>