<OT> New Posting: ROA-568

[roa@equinox.rutgers.edu]

ROA 568-1202

Clash, Lapse and Directionality

Birgit Alber <birgit.alber@lett.unitn.it>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=568


Abstract:
Directionality effects in the parsing of rhythmical
secondary stress are analyzed in this paper as the result of
two conflicting types of constraints. A dominant alignment
constraint ALLFTL, requiring feet to be aligned as much as
possible to the left edge of the prosodic word, is
responsible for the generation of metrical structures were
feet are left-aligned. Right-alignment, on the other hand,
is not the result of an alignment constraint, but the
consequence of the rhythmical constraints *CLASH and *LAPSE
demanding alternating rhythm. This approach to
directionality makes the right typological predictions
excluding from the set of possible metrical structures
right-aligning iambic systems, which are not attested among
the world's languages. The interaction between the
constraints determining rhythmical secondary stress and the
constraints determining main stress placement is discussed
and it is shown how one more typological observation, the
non-existence of initial dactyl systems, is predicted by the
system. A detailed analysis of quantity-sensitive patterns
shows that the same constraints that determine
directionality in quantity-insensitive languages generate
the attested patterns and fail to generated the non-attested
ones also in quantity-sensitive systems. Finally, although
constraints like *CLASH and *LAPSE make similar demands
requiring strict alternation of rhythm, at more careful
scrutiny it turns out that they cannot be unified in a
general constraint demanding alternating stress.

Keywords: stress, typology, directionality, clash, lapse

Areas: Phonology

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=568