Prosodic end-weight and the stress–weight interface

Abstract

Prosodic end-weight refers to the specifically phonological aspect of end-weight, as emerges when one controls for other factors influencing word order, such as frequency, semantics, and syntactic complexity. Eight principles of prosodic end-weight are established, all aligning with the typology of weight more generally, suggesting that prosodic end-weight reflects bona fide phonological weight as opposed to raw complexity or duration. Several possible explanations for prosodic end-weight are considered, including final lengthening, complexity deferral, phonotactic or rhythmic optimization, and phrasal or nuclear stress. Phrasal stress is argued to be the core explanation for prosodic end-weight. Thus, weight-stress mapping operates both within words and in phrasal prosody. Weight-mapping constraints from earlier in the book are extended to phrasal contexts. This analysis predicts, evidently correctly, that some languages, such as Turkish, should exhibit prosodic beginning-weight rather than end-weight.