Spanish is a , so each syllable has the same duration regardless of stress. Stress most often occurs on any of the last three syllables of a word, with some rare exceptions at the fourth last. The "tendencies" of stress assignment are as follows:

In addition to the many exceptions to these tendencies, there are numerous minimal pairs which contrast solely on stress such as "sábana" ('sheet') and "sabana" ('savannah'), as well as "límite" ('boundary'), "limite" ('[that] he/she limits') and "limité" ('I limited').

An amusing example of the significance of intonation in Spanish is the phrase "" ("What do you mean how do I eat? I eat the way I eat!").

Characterization
శబ్దాలు
పేరు, వ్యుత్పత్తి
Lexical stress