<OT> New Posting: ROA-833

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 833-0606

Weight, final lengthening and stress: A phonetic and phonological case study of Norwegian

Anya Lunden <lunden at ucsc.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=833


Abstract:
Many languages, including Norwegian, exhibit CVC weight
asymmetry:  CVC is usually heavy but behaves as light word-finall
y. It is proposed that this asymmetry is motivated by facts
of phonetic length and human perception. A theory of weight
is advanced in which a syllable shape in a given position
is only heavy if it, on average, is sufficiently proportionally
longer than an unstressed (necessarily light) CV in the
same position. A syllable will need to be extra-long word-finally
in order to be categorized as heavy because a final CV is
notably longer than a non-final CV due to final lengthening.
Analyzing weight as requiring a minimum proportional increase
reflects human perception of differences: the same raw increase
has less of a perceptual effect when added to a relatively
long stimulus. Using the results of a production study it
is shown that heavy syllables in Norwegian are at least
60% greater than unstressed CV syllables in the same position,
putting the weight criterion at a 60% proportional increase.
It is shown that a final CVC falls short of this proportional
increase threshold with only an average increase of 27%
over a same-position CV.


The stress system of Norwegian is analyzed in detail, taking
the categorization of syllable weight to be pre-determined
by the weight criterion.  Evidence for the stress pattern
of the language is drawn from the lexicon and the results
of a novel word experiment administered to native Norwegian
speakers. The regular stress patterns in the language are
shown to include not only the predominant stress pattern
of the language but also several minor patterns, predictable
exceptions to the basic pattern. This identification of
basic and minor patterns in conjunction with the weight
criterion based on the proportional increase threshold allows
for a more motivated and complete analysis of Norwegian
stress than has previously been proposed.


The proportional increase theory of weight provides a phoneticall
y and perceptually motivated explanation for the CVC weight
asymmetry thus replacing final consonant extrametricality,
the traditional descriptive mechanism. Other forms of extrametric
ality are proposed to be reinterpretable if the perceptual
consequences of final lengthening are considered. While
the analysis of weight is consistent with the basic tenets
of moraic theory, a departure is made from standard moraic
theory which takes moras to be prosodic units associated
directly to segments. The theory of weight proposed treats
moras as a property of syllables as a whole.

Comments: Dissertation from UC Santa Cruz 2006
Keywords: syllable weight, Norwegian stress, final lengthening, extrametricality, stress correlates, superheavy syllable, moraic theory
Areas: Phonology,Phonetics
Type: PhD Dissertation

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=833