Does "solamente" ever have an accent

Question

In the following phrase, should "solamente" have an accent?

"solamente para el propósito de determinar los gastos...."

Answer 1

Sólo (when meaning solamente...only) can have an accent mark, however. The accent is a diacritical accent mark (to distinguish it from solo), but it is no longer required except when not using it produces ambiguity. It is common to still use it, however.

When it means alone it does not carry an accent mark (solo).

Another reason why you may have thought that it might carry a tilde is that adverbs formed from adjectives (sola+mente) often retain a tilde if the adjective had one previously (not the case here) and they also often retain stress where it was before the mente was appended. There actually exists a secondary stress on the men te part.

So with sola+mente we retain the stress on so la and add a secondary stress on men te.

so la men te

Back to your original question. Since the (feminine) adjective sola had no tilde, there is no tilde on the adverb solamente.

Answer 2

I don't think that word ever has an accent (or, more correctly, a tilde).

Answer 3

To expand somewhat on Qfreed's answer, until about 40 years ago, some words had two tildes to indicate stress. Adjectives such as "única", converted into adverbs by appending "mente" wound up as "únicaménte". That is ancient history, now, but an interesting trivia of the Spanish language.