Tildes de Sobresdrújula

Question

According to the rules provided in Stress of Reference Articles on the website, Sobresdrújula words' accents fall on the fourth, fifth, sixth, etc. to last syllable. However, I always coms across words like permítanme, presentársela, anímate or póngase etc. It seems to me that these accents fall on the third not the fourth or fifth syllable. Why? And there is no tilde with animarse, why is there a tilde on anímate, since animarse or anímate, I think, have the same number of syllables and both end with "e"? Thanks a lot. I will take an spanish exam in half a month, and tildes, especilally tildes added when verbs are attached with pronouns, are the biggest difficulty for me, as I have just learnt Spanish for less than 5 months. In the past months, I have learnt a lot and received a lot of help on this website, of which I am profoundly grateful. Wish you all Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Answer 1

Your question is difficult to follow. You define sobresdrújula, but then you start discussing esdrújula forms and not sobresdrújula forms. I didn't see the transition in logic.

• aguda (stress on last syllable.)
• grave (stress on penultimate syllable)
• esdrújula (stress on 3rd from end syllable)
• sobresdrújula (stress on 4th from end syllable or farther)

It seems to me that these accents fall on the third not the fourth or fifth syllable. Why?

Did you notice that all of your examples of esdrujúla had pronouns attached on the end of the word?)

When you attach a pronoun(s) to a verb (command, present participle (gerundio), or infinitive) you must maintain the stress on the word where it was before you attached the pronoun(s).

permitan=grave=ends in n,s or vowel. Therefore, stress in on the penultimate syllable (on the letter i)

When you wish to attach the pronoun me the stress must be maintained on the i, therefore, it is permítanme since without the accent mark the stress would shift to the a according to the rules because the word (permitanme) would be grave without an accent mark.

there is no tilde with animarse

aminar=aguda (ends in a consonant, other than n or s) therefore, the stress is on the 2nd "a" or the last syllable.

Add a pronoun (se) and the stress must be maintained on the "a". Since the new word (animarse) is grave the accent falls on the "a" where we want it, so no tilde is required.

Entendiendo - zhoujian, DIC 25, 2009

Answer 2

When adding pronouns to verbs, you use tildes to keep the stress on the syllable that would have been stressed even w/o the pronoun.

Animar - ends in r, a consonant which is not n or s, so the stress is on the last syllable. All words ending with a consonant excluding n and s have the stress on the last syllable

Animarse - ends in a vowel so the stress is on the next to last syllable. If a word ends with n or s then it also is stressed in the same way.

So think Anima - stress naturally on the next to last

Anímate - tilde on the i to keep the stress on the same syllable

preguntando - stress on the a naturally

preguntándome - tilde on the a to retain it's normal stress, otherwise it would fall on the o, and that's just weird

I really hate doing a redundant post-sigh. - 0074b507, DIC 25, 2009

I always learn better if I hear it explained it more than one way.. - 003487d6, DIC 25, 2009