Accents on singulars, but not on plurals.
¿Por qué unos sustantivos (singular) tiene un accento, cuando otro sustavtivos (the plural) no tiene un accento?
Por ejemplo: el cinturón (singular) los cinturones (plural)
3 Answers
cin-tu-ron
cin-tu-ro-nes
The accent goes on the singular word to allow the stress on the "o" (or the ron syllable). Otherwise, the accent would fall on the "u" (or tu syllable) since the word ends in a vowel, n or s. cinturon is "grave", without an accent mark, the stress would fall on the next to the last syllable. Why do we want the stress on the "o"? Because the gods of linguistics decided so. (it maintains a pattern with similar words). So the accent mark is used to show that the "o" rather than the "u" is stressed. (to make the word aguda rather than grave).
When we make the word plural (cinturones) the word is grave since it ends in a vowel, n or s. Therefore, the accent falls on the "o" where we want it to according to the rules for placing stress without the necessity of using a tilde to relocate it to the "o".
In Spanish the emphasis falls on the penultimate syllable - unless there is a "tilde" as in the word "cinturón" where the emphasis falls on the last syllable.
When it is made plural "cinturones" there is another syllable (es) so the (on) becomes the penultimate syllable and the "tilde" is not needed.
