Acentos del Bidasoa: Hondarribia

Jose Ignacio Hualde

In this paper, the accentual patterns ofthe Basque dialect spoken in Hondarribia (Fuenterrabfa), in the Bidasoa region, are studied in some detail. It is shown that the accentual unit must be the stem, since stress is always initial when the stem is monosyllabic. In this, we agree with previous descriptions. The results of our investigations differ from previous assumptions on the direction of stress assignment. The stress patterns of words whose stem has three or more syllables indicate that stress must be assigned counting from the end ofthe stem and that in this computation the open or closed nature ofthe last syllable in the stem plays a crucial role.