0 a unit of rhythm in poetry, consisting of one short syllable that is not stressed followed by one long one that is stressed, for example in the word "describe"
The lengthened penult would be the head of the final iamb.
Indeed, in that study, there were no examples of lexical iambs or compounds.
In fact, when trochaic words like tiger and iambs like giraffe are spoken in isolation, they correspond exactly to disyllabic and monosyllabic tones.
The trochee does not have to follow an iamb with the result being a clash configuration.
In verse prosody the strong element of a foot may precede the weak (as with trochees and dactyls) or follow it (as with iambs).
It may be a spondee, an iamb, a trochee or a pyrrhic.
For example, he makes a convincing case that scribal s and s may often have wrongly superseded original s and s and thus transformed authorial iambs into scribal anapaests.
This means that every ranking that produces lengthening in trochees also produces lengthening in iambs, but some rankings that produce lengthening in iambs do not produce lengthening in trochees.
