Agudes

Agudes is not a standard term in Spanish linguistics. In most references the concept is called palabras agudas, or oxítonas in some contexts, describing words whose main stressed syllable is the final one. The plural form of the category is agudas; agudes may appear as a misspelling or variant in some texts, but it is not the conventional term.

Definition and scope

Palabras agudas are one of three traditional Spanish word-stress classes, alongside llana (penultimate-stressed) and esdrújula (antepenultimate-stressed). A word is considered aguda when its primary emphasis falls on the last syllable. This pattern is visible in many verbs in their infinitive forms and in various nouns and adverbs.

Orthography and accents

Spanish orthography uses written accents to indicate stressed syllables that do not follow the default rules. Agudas typically carry a written accent when they end in a vowel, or in the consonants n or s, to signal that the stress is on the final syllable. Examples include canción, sofá. If an aguda ends in a consonant other than n or s, no accent is required, as the final syllable is already the normal stress position (for example, cantar).

Examples

Common agudas include cantar (to sing), comer (to eat), avión (airplane) and canción (song). The exact pronunciation and spelling can vary with dialect and morphology, but the defining feature remains the final-syllable stress.

See also

Palabras llanas (llanas), palabras esdrújulas, acentuación.