Word Prominence in Languages with Complex Morphologies

Abstract

AbstractThis volume focuses on theoretical and analytical challenges that languages with complex morphologies pose for the theory and typology of word-level prosodic phenomena. Due to the morphological complexity and phonological length characteristic of words in these languages, these languages provide a particularly fruitful ground for investigating the effects of both phonological and morphological factors in the assignment of phonological prominence. The chapters of this volume address issues concerning the nature of word prominence, the interplay between morphological, phonological, and phonetic factors in the assignment of prominence, as well as a wide range of methodological and theoretical issues that are relevant when studying phonological prominence in (often considerably under-described and under-studied) synthetic languages. These issues are discussed for a genetically and geographically diverse group of languages, which contributes to both the empirical and theoretical value of this book. Chapters in the first part of this volume address general theoretical issues pertaining to word prominence in the languages in question, including the issue of ‘wordhood’ and the empirical, theoretical, and methodological issues with delineating word-level prominence and the higher-level prosodic phenomena in these languages. The second part of this volume contains case studies of stress, accent, and tone in a geographically and genetically diverse set of languages with highly synthetic morphologies including languages of the Americas, Europe and Asia, and Australia.