Abstract
This article seeks to develop alternatives to recent theories (Hayes 1985, 1987, 1991; McCarthy and Prince 1986, 1990; Prince 1991) that explain quantitative asymmetries between iambic and trochaic systems on the basis of a rhythmiciambic-trochaic law. The theory proposed here derives such asymmetries from two different rhythmic factors: moraic prominence-relations internal to heavy syllables, and avoidance of clash and lapse in sequences of moras. Firstly, it argues for a distinction between parsing feet and surface feet. Parsing feet draw from a symmetric foot inventory, based on two parameters:stressable element (mora vs. syllable), andheadedness (iambic vs. trochaic). That is, the basic foot inventory is no longer governed by the iambic-trochaic law. Secondly, parsing feet are mapped into surface feet by rules that impose quantitative changes, or by stray adjunction, induced by strict prosodic layering. Thirdly, a rhythmic sub-theory defines filters that rule out clashes and lapses in sequences of moras or syllables, depending on the type of stressable element. It explains iambic-trochaic asymmetries with respect to lengthening and shortening, and an asymmetry with respect to directionality of iambic parsing. Evidence will be presented from Tübatulabal, Yidiny, Araucanian, Chugach Alutiiq Yupik, Cayuga, Latin, and English.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Allen, George D.: 1975, ‘Speech Rhythm: Its Relation to Performance Universals and Articulatory Timing’,Journal of Phonetics 3, 75–86.
Allen, W. Sidney: 1973,Accent and Rhythm, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Ariste, Paul: 1968,A Grammar of the Votic Language, Research Center for the Language Sciences, Indiana University, Humanities Press, New York.
Bell, Alan: 1977, ‘Accent Placement and Perception of Prominence in Rhythmic Structures’, in L. M. Hyman (ed.),Studies in Stress and Accent, Southern California Occasional Papers in Linguistics 4, 1–13.
Benger, Janet: 1984, ‘The Metrical Phonology of Cayuga’, M.A. thesis, University of Toronto.
Borgstrøm, Carl: 1949, ‘Thoughts about Indo-European Vowel Gradation’,Norsk Tidsskrift fur Sprogvidenskap 15, 137–187.
Carlson, Lauri: 1978, ‘Stress in Finnish’, unpublished manuscript, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Chafe, Wallace L.: 1977, ‘Accent and Related Phenomena in the Five Nations Iroquois Languages’, in: L. M. Hyman (ed.),Studies in Stress and Accent, Southern California Occasional Papers in Linguistics 4, 169–181.
Crowhurst, Megan: 1991, ‘Foot Construction and Metrical Head Assignment in Yidiny’, paper presented at LSA Annual Meeting, Chicago, January 6, 1991.
Dixon, Robert M. W.: 1977,A Grammar of Yidin y, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Dresher, B. Elan and Aditi Lahiri: 1991, ‘The Germanic Foot: Metrical Coherence in Old English’,Linguistic Inquiry 22, 251–286.
Echeverría, Max S. and Heles Contreras: 1965, ‘Araucanian Phonemics’,International Journal of American Linguistics 31, 132–135.
Fidelholtz, James: 1967,English Vowel Reduction, unpublished manuscript, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Foster, Michael K.: 1982, ‘Alternating Weak and Strong Syllables in Cayuga Words’,International Journal of American Linguistics 49, 59–72.
Giegerich, Heinz J.: 1985,Metrical Phonology and Phonological Structure, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Halle, Morris: 1990, ‘Respecting Metrical Structure’,NLLT 8, 149–176.
Halle, Morris and Jean-Roger Vergnaud: 1987,An Essay on Stress, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Halle, Morris and Michael Kenstowicz: 1991, ‘The Free Element Condition and Cyclic versus Noncyclic Stress’,Linguistic Inquiry 22, 457–501.
Hammond, Michael: 1990a,Metrical Theory and Learnability, unpublished manuscript, University of Arizona.
Hammond, Michael: 1990b,Deriving Ternarity, unpublished manuscript, University of Arizona.
Harms, Robert T.: 1981, ‘A Backwards Metrical Approach to Cairo Arabic Stress’,Linguistic Analysis 7, 429–451.
Hawkins, Neil: 1950, ‘Patterns of Vowel Loss in Macushi (Carib)’,International Journal of American Linguistics 16, 87–90.
Hayes, Bruce: 1980,A Metrical Theory of Stress Rules, PhD dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Hayes, Bruce: 1982, ‘Metrical Structure as the Organizing Principle of Yidiny Phonology’, in H. van der Hulst and N. Smith (eds.),The Structure of Phonological Representations, Part I, Foris, Dordrecht.
Hayes, Bruce: 1985, ‘Iambic and Trochaic Rhythm in Stress Rules’,Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistic Society,11, 429–446.
Hayes, Bruce: 1987, ‘A Revised Parametric Metrical Theory’, in J. McDonough and B. Plunket (eds.),Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society 17, 274–289.
Hayes, Bruce: 1989,Stress and Syllabification in the Yupik Languages, unpublished manuscript, UCLA.
Hayes, Bruce: 1991,Metrical Stress Theory: Principles and Case Studies, unpublished manuscript, UCLA.
Hercus, Luise A.: 1986,Victorian Languages: A Late Survey, Pacific Linguistics, Series B, No. 77, The Australian National University, Canberra.
Hint, Mati: 1973,Eesti Keele Sonafonoloogia I, Eesti NSV Teaduste Akadeemia, Tallinn, Estonia.
Inkelas, Sharon: 1989,Prosodic Constituency in the Lexicon, PhD dissertation, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
Itô, Junko: 1986,Syllable Theory in Prosodic Phonology, PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Jacobs, Haike: 1986, ‘Metrical Structure and Phonological Domains. Evidence from the Evolution of Unstressed Vowels from Latin to Old French’,Gramma 10, 163–188.
Jacobs, Haike: 1990, ‘On Markedness and Bounded Stress Systems’,The Linguistic Review 7, 81–119.
Jakobson, Roman: 1962, ‘Contributions to the Study of Czech Accent’, in:R. Jakobson: Selected Writings I, Mouton, ‘s-Gravenhage, 614–625.
Kager, René: 1989,A Metrical Theory of Stress and Destressing in English and Dutch, Foris, Dordrecht.
Kager, René: 1990, ‘Strict Binarity and Destressing Rules’, unpublished manuscript, Stanford University.
Kager, René: 1991, ‘The Moraic Iamb’, in L. Nichols, R. Rodriguez, and L. Dobrin (eds.),Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistic Society,27, Vol. 1.
Kager, René: 1992, ‘Shapes of the Generalized Trochee’, inThe Proceedings of the Eleventh West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics.
Kálmán, Béla: 1965,Vogul Chrestomathy, Indiana University, Bloomington.
Kerek, Andrew: 1971,Hungarian Metrics: Some Linguistic Aspects of Iambic Verse, Indiana University Publications, Uralic and Altaic Series 117, Indiana University, Bloomington.
Key, Harold H.: 1961, ‘Phonotactics of Cayuvava’,International Journal of American Linguistics 27, 143–150.
Kiparsky, Paul: 1979, ‘Metrical Structure Assignment is Cyclic’,Linguistic Inquiry 10, 421–441.
Kiparsky, Paul: 1982, ‘From Cyclic Phonology to Lexical Phonology’, in H. van der Hulst and N. Smith (eds.),The Structure of Phonological Representations, Vol. 1, Foris, Dordrecht, 131–175.
Kiparsky, Paul: 1991,Quantity-sensitivity and the Nature of Templatic Parsing, paper presented at the 17th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society, 1991.
Leer, Jeff: 1985a, ‘Prosody in Alutiiq’, in M. E. Krauss (ed.),Yupik Eskimo Prosody Systems: Descriptive and Comparative Studies, Alaska Native Language Center, Fairbanks, Alaska, 77–133.
Leer, Jeff: 1985b, ‘Toward a Metrical Interpretation of Yupik Prosody’, in M. E. Krauss (ed.),Yupik Eskimo Prosody Systems: Descriptive and Comparative Studies, Alaska Native Language Center, Fairbanks, Alaska, 159–172.
Levin, Juliette: 1988, ‘Bidirectional Foot Construction as a Window on Level Ordering’, in M. Hammond and M. Noonan (eds.),Theoretical Morphology: Approaches in Modern Linguistics, Academic Press, San Diego, California, 339–352.
Levin, Juliette: 1989,Evidence for an Iterative Footing Parameter, paper presented at GLOW colloquium, Utrecht.
Liberman, Mark, and Alan Prince: 1977, ‘On Stress and Linguistic Rhythm’,Linguistic Inquiry 8, 249–336.
Lightner, Theodore: 1972,Problems in the Theory of Phonology, Linguistic Research Inc., Edmonton, Alberta.
Matteson, Esther: 1965,The Piro (Arawakan) Language, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.
McCarthy, John: 1979,Formal Problems in Semitic Phonology and Morphology, PhD dissertation, MIT, Reproduced by the Indiana University Linguistics Club, Bloomington.
McCarthy, John, and Alan Prince: 1986,Prosodic Morphology, unpublished manuscript, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, and University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
McCarthy, John, and Alan Prince: 1990, ‘Foot and Word in Prosodic Morphology: The Arabic Broken Plural’,NLLT 8, 209–283.
Mester, Armin: 1991, ‘The Quantitative Trochee in Latin’, to appear inNLLT.
Miyaoka, Osahito: 1985, ‘Accentuation in Central Alaskan Yupik’, in M. E. Krauss (ed.),Yupik Eskimo Prosody Systems: Descriptive and Comparative Studies, Alaska Native Language Center, Fairbanks, Alaska, 51–75.
Michelson, Karen: 1988,A Comparative Study of Lake-Iroquoian Accent, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Myers, Scott: 1987, ‘Vowel Shortening in English’,NLLT 5, 485–518.
Nespor, Marina, and Irene Vogel: 1986,Prosodic Phonology, Foris, Dordrecht.
Piggott, Glyne L.: 1980,Aspects of Odawa Morphophonemics, Garland Publishing, New York.
Prince, Alan: 1975,The Phonology and Morphology of Tiberian Hebrew, PhD dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Prince, Alan: 1976, ‘Stress’, unpublished manuscript, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Prince, Alan: 1980, ‘A Metrical Theory for Estonian Quantity’,Linguistic Inquiry 11, 511–62.
Prince, Alan: 1983, ‘Relating to the Grid’,Linguistic Inquiry 14, 19–100.
Prince, Alan: 1985, ‘Improving Tree Theory’,Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistic Society 11, 471–490.
Prince, Alan: 1991, ‘Quantitative Consequences of Rhythmic Organization’, in: K. Deaton, M. Noske and M. Ziolkowski (eds.),Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistic Society 26, Vol. 2.
Prince, Alan and Paul Smolensky: 1991, ‘Putting your Priorities in Order: Constraint Interaction in Harmonic Phonology’, lecture presented at OTS, University of Utrecht, November 27, 1991.
Rice, Curtis: 1988, ‘Stress Assignment in the Chugach Dialect of Alutiiq’, in D. Brentari, G. Larson and L. MacLeod (eds.),Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistic Society 24, Vol. 1, 304–315.
Rice, Curtis: 1990, ‘Pacific Yupik: Implications for Metrical Theory’, inCoyote Papers 1990, University of Arizona, Tucson.
Ross, John R.: 1972, ‘A Reanalysis of English Word Stress (Part I)’, in M. Brame (ed.),Contributions to Generative Phonology, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 229–323.
Selkirk, Elisabeth O.: 1980, ‘The Role of Prosodic Categories in English Word Stress’,Linguistic Inquiry 11, 563–605.
Selkirk, Elisabeth O.: 1984,Syntax and Phonology: The Relation between Sound and Structure, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Shaw, Patricia: 1985, ‘Coexistent and Competing Stress Rules in Stoney (Dakota)’,International Journal of American Linguistics 51, 1–18.
Sluyters, Willibrord: 1990, ‘Length and Stress Revisited: A Metrical Account of Diphthongization, Vowel Lengthening, Consonant Gemination and Word-Final Epenthesis in Modern Italian’,Probus 2, 65–102.
Stowell, Timothy: 1979, ‘Stress Systems of the World, Unite!’,MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 1, Department of Linguistics, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 51–76.
Thurneysen, Rudolf: 1961,A Crammar of Old Irish, The Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, Dublin.
Tryon, Darrell T.: 1967a,Dehu Grammar, Pacific Linguistics, Series B, No. 7, The Australian National University, Canberra.
Tryon, Darrell T.: 1967b,Nengone Grammar, Linguistic Circles of Canberra Publications, Series B, No. 6. Canberra.
Van der Hulst, Harry: 1984,Syllable Structure and Stress in Dutch, Foris, Dordrecht.
Van der Hulst, Harry: 1991,The Book of Stress, unpublished manuscript, University of Leiden.
Voegelin, Charles F.: 1935,Tübatalabal Grammar, University of California Publications in American Archeology and Ethnology 34.2, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Weeda, Don: 1989, ‘Trimoraicity in Central Alaskan Yupik and Elsewhere’, unpublished manuscript, Department of Linguistics, University of Texas, Austin.
Wheeler, Deirdre: 1980, ‘A Metrical Analysis of Stress and Related Processes in Southern Paiute and Tubatalabal’,University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 5, 145–175.
Woodbury, Anthony: 1987, ‘Meaningful Phonological Processes: A Study of Central Alaskan Yupik Eskimo Prosody’,Language 63, 685–740.
Woodrow, Herbert: 1951, ‘Time Perception’, in: S. S. Stevens (ed.),Handbook of Experimental Psychology, Wiley, New York, New York, 1224–1236.
Zec, Draga: 1988,Sonority Constraints on Prosodic Structure, PhD dissertation Stanford University, Stanford, California.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The research on this article was completed during my stays at UCLA (1989–1990) and Stanford University (1990–1991). An earlier version was presented atCLS in 1991. Work on final revisions was supported by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, Grant No. 300-171-023. For valuable discussion and/or comments on earlier versions of this article, I wish to thank Wim de Haas, Bruce Hayes, Harry van der Hulst, Larry Hyman, Sharon Inkelas, Michael Kenstowicz, Tracy King, Paul Kiparsky, Armin Mester, Chris Piñon, Alan Prince, Chang Yong Sohn, and three anonymous NLLT referees. All mentioned above are free from any responsibility for errors.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kager, R. Alternatives to the iambic-trochaic law. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 11, 381–432 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993165
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993165