# Veneto: stress of words ending in a consonant



## LoveVanPersie

Some Venetian (dialect of Venice) surnames ending in a consonant such as _Buffon_, _Santon_, _Perin_, are stressed on the last syllable. I wonder if Venetian words ending in a consonant are stressed on the last syllable mostly?


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## symposium

Hi! I'm from Veneto and I can tell you that, as far as I can recollect, all Venetian words ending in a consonant are stressed on the last syllable, be they proper names or nouns or verbs alike.


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## LoveVanPersie

Aha thank you! But there are 2 exceptions among examples on English Wikipedia: [ˈoŋzaɾ] "to anoint", and on Italian one: _łuxer _/'luzer/ or /'juzer/. Are they correct?


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## symposium

Mmmm, I'm not sure... I'm not from Venice but from nearby Vicenza, and here we usually put an "e" at the end of infinitive verbs, so we say "onzere" with the stress on the first syllable ("onzere" actually means "to smear" and to be "onto" (past participe) just means to be dirty); so I guess Wikipedia is right. How comes you want to know about Venetian, if I may ask?


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## LoveVanPersie

I found a Venetian word _ónxar_, which is probably the former word. Do you spell the same word as _ónxare_?
Haha I just found some Italian footballers' surnames ending in a consonant, which is rare in Italian, are all stressed on the last syllable. I once thought if they're French, but according to forebears, number of people who bear the three surnames in Italy is more than that in France, and I couldn't find any news saying the three players are of French (or other French-speaking countries') descent. Besides, mappe dei cognomi italiani implies that they're Venetian. Then I came up with this question.


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## symposium

Yes, family names ending with a consonant (usually a "n") are typical of Veneto. Think of the clothing brand "Benetton" (stress on the last syllable) among many others. I don't really spell Venetian words because dialects in Italy are mostly spoken languages and spelling rules are arbitrary, meaning that there is no authority that decides how words should be spelt.


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## francisgranada

LoveVanPersie said:


> I wonder if Venetian words ending in a consonant are stressed on the last syllable mostly?


I think mostly yes, but not because they end in a consonant, rather because they maintain the original/etymological stress of (vulgar) Latin. In other words, the last unstressed vowels were often left, but the stress remained on "it's place". It is valid for some other Romance languages, as well. Even for Italian: if we say in Italian e.g. _amor_, _amar_, _aman _instead of _amore, amare, amano _(the forms without the final _-e _are possible and "legal" in standard Italian) , then the stress will remain on the original syllable, which then will become typically (but not necessarily) the last syllable of the word. The same happens in Spanish, Portuguese, partially in French (see e.g. _aimer_, but _prendre_, from Latin _amare _and _prehendere_), etc ... Of course, there are also exceptions.

For example, the surname _Buffon _might come from a former *_Buff__o__ne. _After the loss of  the final _-e _in Venetian, the stressed syllable has become the last syllable of this word.

To be precise, I don't speak Venetian, thus  what I have written is rather a (_quasi_) general principle, in my opinion valid also for the Venetian.


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## Ithilien

francisgranada said:


> I think mostly yes, but not because they end in a consonant, rather because they maintain the original/etymological stress of (vulgar) Latin. In other words, the last unstressed vowels were often left, but the stress remained on "it's place". It is valid for some other Romance languages, as well. Even for Italian: if we say in Italian e.g. _amor_, _amar_, _aman _instead of _amore, amare, amano _(the forms without the final _-e _are possible and "legal" in standard Italian) , then the stress will remain on the original syllable, which then will become typically (but not necessarily) the last syllable of the word. The same happens in Spanish, Portuguese, partially in French (see e.g. _aimer_, but _prendre_, from Latin _amare _and _prehendere_), etc ... Of course, there are also exceptions.
> 
> For example, the surname _Buffon _might come from a former *_Buff__o__ne. _After the loss of  the final _-e _in Venetian, the stressed syllable has become the last syllable of this word.
> 
> To be precise, I don't speak Venetian, thus  what I have written is rather a (_quasi_) general principle, in my opinion valid also for the Venetian.


You are indeed correct. Regional languages (so called _dialetti_) usually have more orthographic stress than Standard Italian, so when a word is ending in consonant and isn't oxytone, it much probably will have a diacritic. Diacritics are extensively used in Venetian like _èsser_/_èser_, _àlcol _etc.

About verbs, usually when they have <e> vowel, they are paroxytones, eg., Venetian _vénder_/_véndar_, Italian _vendere_, Catalan _vendre_, Romanian _a vinde_, French _vendre_; but Portuguese and Spanish verbs are always oxytones in infinitive (_vender_ in both languages). It doesn't work for all verbs though, like Italian _vedere_, but Venetian _véder_/_védar_.


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## LoveVanPersie

Thanks for everyone helping me here!!!


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