Clash, Lapse and Directionality

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 where 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 typolo- gical 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. 1. TYPOLOGICAL (A)SYMMETRIES