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48 some cases, however, one of them may attain a decided prominence in comparison with the others; such a syllable may be said to bear a secondary accent.

☞ The vowel of the syllable bearing the secondary accent is denoted where necessary by the grave accent `.

iii. Most monosyllables are stressed, but many frequently-recurring monosyllables bear no stress, but are pronounced in conjunction with another word. These are, which precede the accented word, and  , which follow it.

i. In Mn. W. all polysyllables, with a few exceptions named in § 41, are accented on the penult; as cá|naf ‘I sing., cán|i̯ad ‘a song’, can|i̯á|dau ‘songs’.

ii. The position of the accent was certainly the same in the Late Ml. period. This is proved by the fact that in the 14th cent. the cynghanedd was fully developed in its modern form in which the penultimate accent plays an important part, ZfCP. iv 123 ff.

(1) But certain vowel values point to a period when the accent fell generally on the ultima. The evidence seems to show that this was the case in O. W., and that the transition took place in the Early Ml. W. period.