Metrical Stress Theory

1. Metrical Stress Theory Julie Nelson, Cailey Moe, and Trang Nguyen

2. Metrical phonology is... • ...a group of subtheories of generative phonology which attempt to categorize stress and stress rules. • ...differs from generative phonology in that it does not treat stress as a segmental feature pertaining specifically to vowels. • ...organizes stress into rhythmic hierarchies.

3. These are the faces of metrical phonology!

4. a brief history... • ...metrical stress theory was a response to Chomsky & Halle's (1968) proposal of a linear analysis that stress is segmental. • ...Liberman (1975) created the theory in his doctoral dissertation • ...other major contributions: Liberman & Prince (1977), Halle and Vergnaud (1978), Hayes (1981,1984, 1995)

5. a brief history... • ...it can be considered a sort of sister theory to auto-segmental theory • ...its authors sought to provide alternatives to generative theory such as rule variables • ...another way to represent stress in stress languages at the same time denoting its hierarchical characteristics.

6. briefly,generative theories of stress • -Generative stress rules are linear and may be considered too simplistic by some • -Stress is treated as a segmental feature • [+stress], [-stress], [1stress], [2stress] • -Doesn't account for the hierarchical and relational properties of stress

7. A sample stress rule (generative) • Penultimate stress (vowel-counting version) • V → [+stress] / ___ C0 V C0 ]word • Assign stress to the second-to-last vowel in the word.

8. Building Syllables • All syllables have: • An onset: "The consonant or sequence of consonants at the beginning of a syllable" • A coda:"The consonant or sequence of consonants at the end of a syllable" • And a nucleus:"The vowel or diphthong found at the syllable's core and functioning as its sonority peak"

9. Syllable Structure

10. Syllable Construction • When building syllables, first assign the nucleus!

11. Syllable Construction • Next, attach any consonants to the following syllable:

12. Syllable Construction • Finally, if necessary, attach any consonants not yet syllabified with the preceding syllable:

13. In some languages, Onset Formation appears to be word bounded, like in German:

14. Syllable Construction • In other languages, like Spanish, Onset Formation can cross word boundries:

15. Syllable Weight • Heavy Syllables: • End in a consonant (aka 'closed syllable') • Have a long vowel or diphthong (aka 'open') • Light Syllables: • End in a short vowel (open) • Syllables that end in a consonant are heavy, ones that end in a vowel are light.

16. Generative Representation of Heavy/Light Syllabification

17. More about syllables... • Every syllable must have a nucleus. Depending on the language, onset and coda are not required. • Arabic:Every syllable must have an onset • Samoan: codas are illegal

18. Metrical Theories of Stress • A summary of the typological properties of stress: • Culminativity: • Every content word has to have at least 1 stressed syllable • In every word or phrase there is one syllable which is stronger than the rest • Stress is not usually assigned on grammatical words • Rhythmic distribution: • Syllables bearing stress tend to occur in roughly equal distances • Stress Hierarchies: • Some stresses are stronger than others within a word or phrase boundary (primary, secondary, tertiary stresses, etc.) • Non-assimilation • Stress doesn't assimilate like sound features like [round] or [front] do

19. Metrical representations of stress • 1. Metrical tree (Liberman 1975, Liberman & Prince 1977, Hayes 1984) • Metrical trees usually have a similar format to syntactic trees

20. Metrical Representations of Stress • 2. Metrical Grid (Liberman & Prince, 1977) • Primary stress  • Secondary stress  • syllable  => • 3. Bracketed Grid (Halle & Vergnaud, 1987)

21. Grids, continued • Grids are ways to represent certain stress phenomena:

22. Grids, continued • Grids roughly correspond to the categorical levels of stress • In this way, they convey similar information to what can be found on trees

23. Parameters of Stress Representation • 1. Foot Boundedness • 2. Foot Dominance • 3. Quantity-sensitivity • 4. Directionality vs Iterativity

24. 1. Boundedness • Motivated by culminativity and exhaustivity. • Culminativity: Every content word must have at least one stress. • Exhaustivity: Every syllable has to be organized into feet. • Bounded feetcan have no more than 2 syllables (feet are binary or degenerate at the syllabic level of analysis). • Unbounded feet can have any number of syllables. • Words with an odd number of syllables begin or end with a degenerate foot.

25. 1. Boundedness • Ex: What types of foot are these?

26. 2. Foot Dominance • Left dominance: • left nodes of feet are stressed • Feet are trochaic (a) • Ex: 'problem, ('holi)day, • ('alter)('nation) • 'what a ('failure) • Right dominance: • Right nodes of feet are stressed • Feet are iambic (b) • Ex: re'port, • (com'puter) • (ex'treme)mity • (My 'head) (was 'hot)

27. 3. Quantity Sensitivity (Q-sensitivity) • Syllable weight influences how stress feet are assigned. • Q-sensitive language: heavy syllables get stressed. • English is Q-sensitive: • Light penult: stress goes to preceding syllable. • Ex: 'Canada, 'metrical, 'visible, 'ultimate • Heavy penult: gets the stress • Ex: A'genda, ho'rizon, de'cided, 'mango • Q-determined (Obligatory Branching): means Q-sensitive, but with the extra requirement that the dominant syllable node be heavy.

28. 3. Quantity Sensitivity (Q-sensitivity) • Q-insensitive language: heavy syllables may occur in stressless position. Another way of understanding: syllables are treated as having equal weight. • French is Q-insensitive. Examples anyone?

29. 4. Directionality vs Iterativity • Directionality: The assignment of feet starts from the left and goes right or vice-versa • English likes right-to-left, trochaic foot formation. • Ex: restoration => resto('ration) => ('resto)('ration) • Iterativity • Iterativity (bidirectionality): assign a foot at one edge, then go to the other edge and assign feet iteratively. • Ex: Piro language • Non-iterativity: other cases (words have one single foot at the edge. Ex: monosyllable or bi-syllable words)

30. Extrametricality • [X] does not conform to metrical rules & occurs at peripheral locations. • Ex: why is it as'paragus • but not ('aspa)('ragus) • 'gus' is extrametrical --> poor thing gets a degenerate foot (exhaustivity) • Tree construction is right to left and trochaic: • * • * * * * * * * < * > * (* *)< * > • asparagus => aspara<gus> => as('para)(gus) • More examples: ('visi)('bili)ty, re('peti)tive,

31. The future of metrical phonology • Can regularities be accounted for by transformational rules or by output constraints? • How does prominence in syllables affect stress in syllables? • Research in languages with ternary rhythm.

32. Sources • Hammond, M. (1995) Metrical Phonology. Annual Review of Anthropology • 24 (pp. 313-342) • Hayes, B. (1995). Metrical stress theory: Principals and case studies. • Chicago: University of Chicago Press • Hayes, B. (2009) Introductory Phonology. Wiley-Blackwell Publishing: West • Sussex, UK. • Hogg, R. & McCully, C.B. (1987) Metrical Phonology: A Coursebook. • University of Cambridge Publishing: New York, NY. • Kager, R. (1995) The metrical theory of word stress. In The handbook of • phonology, Goldsmith, J (ed.) (pp. 367-402) Blackwell Publishing: Cambridge, • MA • McCarthy, J. & Hayes, B. (2003) Metrical phonology. Linguistics department • faculty publication series. University of Massachusetts Publishing. Retrieved • from: http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=linguist_faculty_pubs • Metrical Phonology. (n.d) Wikipedia. Retrieved from • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrical_phonology