Rephrasing line-end restrictions

Standard approaches to Romance metrics implicitly accept that there is a split between syllable-counting metrical systems, as exemplified by French, and systems crucially dependent on stress properties, as in Italian, Spanish and elsewhere. In the latter systems, however, simple meters are not subject to any line-internal stress restrictions, and all meters tolerate line-final unstressed words. Neither fact seems compatible with the simpler versions of the bipartition above. On the basis of Spanish materials, this paper argues that an intonation-based account of at least some aspects of Romance metrics can eliminate this inconsistency. …Each humble line prolongs A tone that might have passed away Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Last Reader