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Trying to understand accent marks, especially "seis"

Trying to understand accent marks, especially "seis"

0
votes

In dieciseis and veintiseis the "e" in seis is marked with an accent mark--I don't know how to get it to do that on my keyboard. But by itself so such mark. I thought it was there to show that the "ei" were two syllables so is "seis" pronounced differently when it's combined'

5306 views
updated NOV 8, 2008
posted by Hal

3 Answers

0
votes

:

I thought it was there to show that the "ei" were two syllables so is "seis" pronounced differently when it's combined?

Two vowels belong to the same syllable, unless they are both from this group: a, e, o. The combination "ei" has only one vowel from that group, so it is one syllable.

The reason why "vein-ti-séis" has an accent if because the stress is on the last syllable, and when a word ends in vowel, -n or -s, it takes an accent if the stress is on that last syllable.

updated NOV 8, 2008
posted by lazarus1907
0
votes

Thanks, I hadn't noticed this before. ei in Spanish is a dipthong so seis is pronounced as one syllable
If there were no accent in dieciséis the stress would fall on the second 'i' of the word dieciseis. I'm sure there would be something about the rules of stress in the reference section.

updated NOV 8, 2008
posted by tad
0
votes

For the keyboard see "Rules/References (above) and then "typing".

updated NOV 7, 2008
posted by samdie
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