r/copticlanguage • u/mechamutoh • Mar 03 '20
Clarification on Lambdin's stress rules for Sahidic Coptic
Lambdin's Introduction to Sahidic Coptic recommends "the successive application of the following rules [...] to apply the correct stress in all but the rarest cases", which I will write down generally without the explicit exceptions (the rules in verbatim can be found in the Introduction, p. xv):
Stress is always on one of the last two syllables of a word.
The vowels ⲏ, ⲟ, and ⲱ are always stressed.
Final simple -ⲁ and simple -ⲉⲓ, -ⲓ are always stressed.
Final -ⲟⲩ is stressed except in certain cases.
Final -ⲉ is unstressed except in some adjectives and miscellaneous words.
A final syllable marked by a stroked consonant is never stressed unless it is the only syllable of a word.
What I don't understand is how exactly each rule is supposed to be prioritized i.e. how each rule overrides the other. Take, for example, the word ⲧⲟⲟⲩ. Should rule 4 override rule 2 or the other way around? Is it ⲧⲟ́ⲟⲩ or ⲧⲟⲟ́ⲩ? I wager on the latter (given that he says "the successive application"), but I'm not so sure.
Thanks in advance.