Come back, don't go home.

So I've spent the last week or so working on stress, prominence, and intonation. Binisaya, like most Philippine languages is syllable-timed, not stress timed, which takes some getting used to. What's more, stress does act to distinguish words in Binisaya, Uli means 'return', but uli means 'go home'. Similar, but noticeably different meanings. 
Most longer words have stress on the second to last syllable, e.g. hikalimtan, but words ending in open syllables with an 'a?' or an 'o?' put stress on the stopped vowel, though it isn't always primary stress.
Here's my analysis of the stress in my archetype below. Primary stress for a word is underlined, secondary is in italics, and the most prominent words in the line are in red. Despite being a function word 'sa', which can translate to 'in', 'on', 'at', 'of', or 'the' often carries the primary stress in a sentence because of the nature of the grammar of Philippine languages. Philippine languages belong in a group called either Philippine or Austronesian type voice system languages. When 'sa' receives prominence it's acting almost as a topic marker, indicating an actor or the equivalent of a direct object.



Buhi sa kanunay
Ug di ko hikalimtan
Sa hilom gibati ko.
Ang kamingaw ning dughan

II
Bisag giyam-iran, bisan pa’g gitamay
Molambo ug molipang 
kay_ang gugmang matuod di mamatay

Refrain:
Tuhoi intawn ako
Salig sa gisaad ko
Gugma kining way pagkalaya
Bisa’g ibanlas sa luha

III
Kon ang kasing-kasing ko
Sa palad sakiton
Didto sa kalangitan
Ako kang paabuton



Note to self: paabuton keeps coming out as paabutaen, complete with an utterly American [ae] in there. Really need to work on it. Also, when I get the stress right, I tend to over aspirate. I really need to work on (still) aspiration, or rather, non-aspiration, but I'm finally starting to get the speed and sound of it right, if over-exaggerated. I'll probably spend this week working on aspiration more, because I really need to work on it.