Is zichome an example of a word where the stress goes on the penultimate syllable? It is the only word I have run into so far (other than the example given, a GRRM word, Tolorro that has the stress on the penultimate syllable.) where it is very obvious that the penultimate syllable is 'heavy'.
No, zichome has the stress on the first syllable. Words are stressed on the penultimate syllable if they end in vowel-consonant-consonant-vowel.Other examples include haqeqqe, zhokakkwa,khalakka, kifindirgi, mawizzi etc.
It's a bit more complicated than that.
When you determine syllabe weigth in Dothraki*, only the coda, the consonants following the vowel, matter.
Zichome breaks down as
zi-
cho-
me, so no consonants in any coda, no heavy syllabes.
Incidentally,
ch is actually a digraph for a sigle phoneme, albeit affricate, so every syllabe is actually built roughly the same. On the other hand,
idrie, for example, breaks down as i-dri-e, and the mid syllabe has truly a two consonant cluster on its onset. But while the middle syllabe is slightly more complex, it's still light and the stress is thus on the first syllabe.
[* As far as I understand, this isn't even that much language specific; it seems at least most languages are best analysed in this way, as far as syllabe weight is of concern.]
What makes things complicated is that it's not a trivial task to determine, whether a syllabe ends in consonant or not. Well, it's easy almost always - if there is less than two consonants between vowels, the former syllabe is always light; if there is a doubled consonant or more than two different consonants, the former syllabe is always heavy. But if there are two different consonants, you need to know the full syllabification system, sonority levels and all:
http://wiki.dothraki.org/dothraki/Syllabification_and_Stress.
zi·cho·me
i·dri·e
am·mi·thra <- hard to determine
as·
sam·va <- hard to determine
ki·fin·
dir·gi <- hard to determine
ma·
wiz·zi
zho·
kak·kwa
