ABSTRACT
Accentuation – acentuacion – refers to the stress or relative emphasis in pronunciation that is given to a syllable in a word. In the written language in Spanish there are general rules governing accentuation, so that it is obvious how a word should be stressed just by looking at it. The basic general accentuation rules in Spanish are: all words ending in a vowel are stressed on the penultimate syllable; all words ending in the consonants -n or -s are also stressed on the penultimate syllable; and all words ending in any other consonant are stressed on the final syllable. Adverbs that end in -mente have two stresses. One of the stresses is placed on the adjectival or adverbial part of the word, and the second on the first syllable of -mente: generalmente, paradojicamente, repetidamente, facilmente. A diphthong is a combination of two vowel sounds that are pronounced as part of the same syllable.
