Abstract
This paper investigates the role recursive structures play in prosody. In current understanding, phonological phrasing is computed by a general syntax–prosody mapping algorithm. Here, we are interested in recursive structure that arises in response to morphosyntactic structure that needs to be mapped. We investigate the types of recursive structures found in prosody, specifically: For a prosodic category κ, besides the adjunctive type of recursion κ[κ x], κ[x κ], is there also the coordinative type κ[κ κ]? Focusing on the prosodic forms of compounds in two typologically rather different languages, Danish and Japanese, we encounter three types of recursive word structures: coordinative ω[ω ω], left-adjunctive ω[f ω], right-adjunctive ω[ω f] and the strictly layered compound structure ω[f f]. In addition, two kinds of coordinative φ-compounds are found in Japanese, one with a non-recursive (strictly layered) structure φ[ω ω], a mono-phrasal compound consisting of two words, and one with coordinative recursion φ[φ φ], a bi-phrasal compound. A cross-linguistically rare type of post-syntactic compound has this biphrasal structure, a fact to be explained by its sentential origin.
Highlights
Under what conditions do recursive structures arise in prosody? “Recursion”, or “unbounded nesting”—refers to “a procedure that calls itself, or [ . . . ] a constituent that contains a constituent of the same kind” (Pinker and Jackendoff 2005, p. 203)
It is the second characterization that is relevant: Phonological constituency from the word up originates through a general syntax–prosody mapping procedure, and recursive structures arise as part of this mapping, in two specific situations: (i) under the pressure of phonological wellformedness constraints—for example, binarity can force a constituent to be reorganized into smaller subconstituents of the same category, as shown, for example, in Kubozono (1988, 1989) for Japanese; (ii) in response to syntactic structure that needs to be mapped, as shown in Ladd (1986, 1988) for English
Such strictly interface-based recursive prosodic structure is intrinsically limited to constituents that are involved in the mapping procedure—i.e., the word and beyond
Summary
Under what conditions do recursive structures arise in prosody? “Recursion”, or “unbounded nesting”—refers to “a procedure that calls itself, or [ . . . ] a constituent that contains a constituent of the same kind” (Pinker and Jackendoff 2005, p. 203). It is the second characterization that is relevant: Phonological constituency from the word up originates through a general syntax–prosody mapping procedure, and recursive structures arise as part of this mapping, in two specific situations: (i) under the pressure of phonological wellformedness constraints—for example, (maximal) binarity can force a constituent to be reorganized into smaller subconstituents of the same category, as shown, for example, in Kubozono (1988, 1989) for Japanese; (ii) in response to syntactic structure that needs to be mapped, as shown in Ladd (1986, 1988) for English Both cases of prosodic recursion have withstood the test of time very well, and we are here interested in the second one. Our glosses follow the Leipzig glossing rules (https://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossing-rules.php, accessed on 16 March 2021), in particular: ABS = “absolutive”, COM = “comitative”, AGT = “agentive” This criticism fails to appreciate the distinction between grammatical categories (such as “noun phrase” and “prepositional phrase”) and grammatical relations or functions (such as “subject” or “object”) made since the beginnings of generative grammar As Chomsky (1965, p. 69) points out, translating relational distinctions into categorial distinctions is redundant—since the distinctions are already manifest in the structure—and a category mistake since it “confuses categorial and functional notions by assigning categorial status to both, and fails to express the relational character of the functional notions”
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