{{Short description|Linguistic rule for placing the accent in a Germanic text}} {{italic title}} {{lang|de|'''Dreimorengesetz'''}} ({{IPA|de|dʁaɪˈmoːʁən.ɡəˌzɛts|lang}}; 'three-[[Mora (linguistics)|mora]] law') is a [[phonological rule|linguistic rule]] proposed by German philologist [[Hermann Hirt]].<ref>James W. Marchand, ''The Sounds and Phonemes of Wulfila's Gothic'', 1973, p. 96: "5.31 The ''Dreimorengesetz''" The prevailing theory accounting for developments of inflectional endings from IE to Germanic to "the various Germanic languages is the theory of ''Dreimorigkeit'' .. This theory, as it is set down by its outstanding exponent, Hermann Hirt, is as follows: ''7 Es gab im Idg. zweimorige und ...''..."</ref> According to the rule, an [[enclitic]] cannot be more than three [[mora (linguistics)|mora]]e in length. That is, three shorts, a long and a short, or a short and a long. Within a single word the most that can follow the accent is a long and a short.<ref>''Godfrey of Fontaine's Abridgement of Boethius of Dacia's: Modi Significandi'' by Boethius (of Dacia), Godfrey (of Fontaines), A. Charlene Senape Mac Dermott, 1980, p. 112: "It's impossible to throw it back to the preceding word [as a real enclitic does] because of the three-mora rule. An enclitic cannot be more than three-moras in length, i.e. three shorts, a long and a short, or a short and along; within a single word the most that can follow the accent is a long and a short."</ref>
==Latin == There is a similar rule for a [[Latin]] word, the [[penultimate rule]]:
With few exceptions, Latin words are stressed on the penult (second-to-last syllable) if it is [[syllable weight|"heavy"]] (having a long vowel or diphthong or ending in a consonant), and on the antepenult (third-to-last syllable) if the penult is [[syllable weight|"light"]] (ending with a short vowel).
Examples:
#''Conditum'' "founded" = ''co•n—di—tum'' (heavy, light, final) = ''cónditum'' #''Condītum'' "seasoned" = ''co•n—di•i—tum'' (heavy, heavy, final) = ''condítum'' #''Conductum'' "brought together" = ''co•n—du•c—tum'' (heavy, heavy, final) =''condúctum''
(— marks a syllable boundary, • marks a mora boundary)
===Moraic analysis of Latin=== If one counts all "light" syllables as one mora and all "heavy" syllables as two morae, it becomes clear that the accent is essentially always placed three morae before the end of the word. Note, however, that for this analysis to work, one must always count the final syllable as one mora, regardless of its actual syllabic composition.
Examples:
#In ''condĭtum'' the third mora from the end is the ''n'' of the first syllable, so the accent falls on ''cón-'' #In ''condītum'' the third mora from the end is the first part of the ''ī'' in the second syllable, so the accent falls on ''dí-'' #In ''conductum'' the third mora from the end is the ''du'' of the second syllable, so the accent falls on ''duc-''
{| ! 5th mora !!4th mora !! '''3rd mora''' !! 2nd mora !! final !! !! accent |- | || co || '''ń''' || di || tum || || = cónditum |- | co || n || '''dí''' || i || tum || || = condítum |- | co || n || '''dú''' || c || tum || || = condúctum |- |}
A somewhat different, and possibly more accurate, analysis is to consider the final syllable as extra metric; then the accent always falls on the syllable with the penult metric mora, and there is no need to define a special type of mora counting for the last syllable.{{Citation needed|reason=Elaborate which sources claim this as more accurate|date=July 2019}}
==Other languages== Many other languages have similar but not identical rules for the placement of the accent: *[[Arabic]] dialects (and certain other [[Semitic languages]]) originally used a similar rule, but this has been complicated by the loss of most final vowels. *[[Sanskrit]] (and certain other [[Indo-Aryan languages]]) use a version of this rule that allowed for placement on the fourth-to-last syllable if the antepenult was light. *[[Ancient Greek]] had a totally different rule, but it likewise restricted the accent to the last three syllables and could be seen as mora-based.<ref>Roman Jakobson, ''Selected Writings: Phonological studies: I'', 2002, p. 263: "The "limitational rule" of Greek accentuation is actually more precise than the three-syllable rule and more exhaustive than the three-mora rule which proved unable to embrace all the possible cases: the vocalic morae between the accented..."</ref> *In [[Japanese language|Japanese]], the [[Japanese pitch accent|pitch accent]] of the standard Tokyo dialect places the accent on the antepenultimate mora by default in loanwords.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kager |first1=René |last2=Martínez-Paricio |first2=Violeta |title=Antepenultimate mora effects – typology and representation |url=https://www.hum2.leidenuniv.nl/pdf/lucl/stress-and-accent/Kager.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Noguchi |first1=Hiroto |title=The Influence of the Original Accent on Japanese Loanwords |url=https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=4386&file_id=22&file_no=1 |publisher=The University of Tokyo}}</ref> This has been argued to be the result of an underlying preference in Japanese for antepenultimate mora accentuation, with the exception of a certain phonological configuration (four-mora words ending in a sequence of [[syllable weight|light syllables]] and a non-[[epenthetic]] vowel) which loanwords are particularly unlikely to satisfy.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kubozono |first1=Haruo |title=Where does loanword prosody come from? |url=https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2005.06.010 |journal=Lingua |pages=1140–1170 |language=en |doi=10.1016/j.lingua.2005.06.010 |date=June 2006|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
[[Category:Stress (linguistics)]]