Heavy Syllables Research Articles

Japanese Mental Syllabary and Effects of Mora, Syllable, Bi-mora and Word Frequencies on Japanese Speech Production

The present study investigated the existence of a Japanese mental syllabary and units stored therein for speech production. Experiment 1 compared naming latencies between high and low initial mora frequencies using CVCVCV nonwords, indicating that nonwords with a high initial mora frequency were named faster than those with a low frequency initial mora. Experiments 2 and 3 clarified the possibility of CV light and CVN/CVR heavy syllables as being units implicated in speech production. CVNCV nonwords in Experiment 2 and CVRCV nonwords in Experiment 3 displayed shorter naming latencies and lower error rates than their baseline (same bi-mora frequencies) of CVCVCV-structured nonwords. Since bi-mora frequencies between CVN/CVR and CVCV were the same, heavy syllables comprised of CVN and CVR units may contribute to ready-made motor-programs stored in the Japanese mental syllabary as variations of the 100 core light syllables (300 units in total). Experiment 4 further tested the effects of bi-mora frequency on the naming of nonwords, and found that CVCVCV-structured nonwords with high bi-mora frequencies were named more quickly and accurately than those with low bi-mora frequencies, although some bi-mora combinations seem to exhibit nonconforming tendencies (i.e., null significance in item analysis). Experiment 5 demonstrated that the naming of real words with high word frequency was quicker than for other real word conditions with low word frequencies (i.e., word frequency effects), with little effect of bi-mora frequencies. Unlike the nonword condition of Experiment 4, bi-mora frequency had only a minor influence on the naming of real words. Based on these findings, the present study proposes a possible model of the Japanese mental syllabary accompanied by a discussion of bi-mora and word frequency effects.

Three Exemplars Allow at Least Some Linguistic Generalizations: Implications for Generalization Mechanisms and Constraints

The mechanism that allows learners to generalize over linguistic input and its relation to constraints on possible generalizations was explored in three experiments. Infants were familiarized briefly with words exhibiting stress patterns generated by a set of ordered principles, and then tested on new words that were either consistent or inconsistent with those principles. In Experiment 1, 9-month-olds generalized from three different heavy syllables (those ending in a consonant) heard during familiarization, to a new heavy syllable at test, but did not generalize from multiple tokens of one heavy syllable. Experiment 2 demonstrated that, although 9-month-olds were able to use three syllables to generalize the linguistically natural principle assigning stress to heavy syllables, they failed to use them to generalize a principle that does not occur in natural languages, suggesting that the mechanism requiring three input examples does not apply to all input equally. Experiment 3 demonstrated that although 9-month-olds failed to generalize the unnatural principle, 7.5-month-olds succeeded, suggesting that constraints on generalization can be acquired over development.

Competition between syllabic and metrical constraints in two Bunun dialects

This article shows how syllabic and metrical constraints interact differently in two dialects of Bunun, despite their similarity in that both dialects exhibit modifications of vowel clusters in response to the ONSET constraint. In Isbukun Bunun, foot forms are constrained both syllabically and moraically. Stress shifts from the unmarked penultimate syllable to final position under duress to satisfy both ONSET and the requirement that heavy syllables must not stand in a prosodically weak position. In contrast, in Takituduh Bunun, metrical wellformedness is considered more important, so the preferred disyllabic foot forms are maintained at the cost of creating onsetless syllables. The analysis is formalized within Optimality Theory by ranking syllabic and metrical constraints differently in the two dialects. OT is advantageous in analyzing the data for two additional reasons: 1) the correlation between stress assignment in nonsuffixed and suffixed words in Isbukun can be directly captured by an output constraint, and 2) the metrical influence on syllabification in Takituduh can be readily handled by allowing syllabic and metrical constraints to interact in the same hierarchy. An implication of the Isbukun data for the properties of surface glides is that pre-peak glides can be moraic or not, depending on whether they follow a tautosyllabic consonant.

The reduplicative template in Tonkawa

Generalised Template Theory holds that templatic restrictions on reduplicative morphemes follow from independent, general principles. Under lexically indexed constraint theory, however, reduplicants are in no way special – morpheme-specific constraints may apply just to reduplicants. This article presents reduplication patterns in Tonkawa, which are argued to require reduplicant-specific constraints. In Tonkawa, the reduplicant is limited in size to CV, and is usually syllabified as a light syllable. Even though the language typically prefers heavy syllables word-initially, they are light if the syllable is a reduplicative prefix. This size restriction is backcopied onto the first syllable of the base. In the context of the prosodic phonology of Tonkawa, this pattern can only be understood if there is a reduplicant-specific prohibition against heavy syllables. This prohibition is formulated in terms of lexically indexed constraints on the reduplicant, which allows for a nuanced understanding of the emergent CV template.

From a Latin syllable-driven stress system to a Romance versus Germanic morphology-driven dynamics: in honour of Lionel Guierre

Within the framework elaborated by the late Professor Lionel Guierre (1921–2001), who pioneered a new school of thought in the study of English phonology, this paper sets out to disprove one of the founding principles of Chomsky and Halle’s theories (also pre-eminent in Halle and Keyser’s later works), namely the premise that the English stress system is, to a great degree, modelled on Classical Latin metrical rules (dichotomy between prefinal heavy syllables entailing penultimate stressing and prefinal light syllables entailing antepenultimate stressing). The first part proposes an overview of L. Guierre’s theoretical framework, essentially based on morphology and syntactic categories, backed up with our own contributions, notably on the role of affixes in stress assignment. A one-page, three-tier (syntactic, morphological and segmental) algorithmic table, capable of accounting for all primary stress distribution rules in contemporary English, endeavors to encapsulate the gist of the phonological system we advocate. In conformity with the methodology of the Guierrian school, all the governing principles and findings presented here are backed up by ample statistical work in the form of samples and inventories extracted from computerised British English phonetic corpora, and more particularly from Daniel Jones’s English Pronouncing Dictionary (12th Ed.). At the end of this recapitulation of the Guierrian stress theory, we come to the conclusion that syllable-weight (except in the case of prefinal consonant clusters) is not a determining factor of contemporary English phonology. In the second part, we propose a diachronic study of the Romance/Germanic conflict which, following the Norman Conquest, led to the formation of the English phonological system as we know it today. In the course of our historical observations, we show that Latin could not have been the underlying force in this process. Further examination of affixes, more particularly in relation to neutral derivation (stress preservation) and secondary stress positioning, also puts paid to the idea that Romance stressing principles eventually supplanted the Germanic stressing dynamics of the English language. In the conclusion to our paper, we express our conviction that English has inherited not one but several phonologies, whose workings are determined by morphology and word-length, but also by learned or foreign word characteristics, being thus the product of a merging process between Romance mechanisms applying to borrowings and learned vocabulary and the prevailing Germanic dynamics for more ordinary vocabulary, as borne out by the fact that most suffixes of the English language actually entail stress preservation.

STRESS AND SYLLABLE STRUCTURE IN ENGLISH: APPROACHES TO PHONOLOGICAL VARIATIONS ∗

We use phonological variation to refer to alternative forms that are available in a language, such as different syllable structures or word stress patterns in English. We discuss several approaches to such variations and argue for a new approach, in which all alternative forms observe a set of inviolable constraints. In particular, we propose that all English words observe four constraints: (a) a foot must be disyllabic, (b) stressed syllables must be heavy, (c) heavy syllables must have stress, and (d) the maximal syllable is CVX. We discuss the implications of our proposal for Optimality Theory and for the analysis of linguistic variation in general.

Where does loanword prosody come from?: A case study of Japanese loanword accent

In this paper we analyze loanword accentuation in Japanese with main focus on its relation with native accentuation. At first glance, loanwords display remarkably different accent patterns from native words, with the former but not the latter favoring the accented pattern over the unaccented one. We present statistical evidence that this impression cannot empirically be supported. Loanwords differ from native words in several phonological structures, notably in the abundance of heavy syllables and epenthetic vowels. If these differences are properly controlled, the two types of words, whether lexically accented or unaccented, exhibit very similar accent patterns and preferences although loanwords still show a stronger tendency towards the accented pattern than native words. This study provides a significant implication for the phonetics vs. phonology controversy in the loanword literature, too. We will demonstrate that perceptual and phonological factors interact with each other in a very interesting way with the first factor determining the overall pitch shape of loanwords, which is then constrained by the prosodic system of the recipient language to yield an appropriate output form.

A Perceptually-Driven Account of Onset-Sensitive Stress

This paper explores onset-sensitive stress from a typological, phonetic and phonological perspective. A phonetic study of three onset-sensitive stress systems suggests a close match between onset weight distinctions and a phonetic measure of perceptual energy, such that phonological weight criteria are the phonetically most effective ones. Perceptual considerations also offer an explanation for other typological observations, including the relative rarity of onset-sensitive stress, the greater weight of low sonority onsets, and the subordination of onset-sensitive weight distinctions to rime-based ones in languages with both types of weight distinctions. Onset-based weight criteria are effectively modelled using a skeletal slot model of the syllable referenced by a family of prominence constraints requiring that heavy syllables be stressed and that light syllables be unstressed.

A Phonological and Phonetic Study of Word‐Level Stress in Chickasaw

This paper presents results of a phonological and phonetic study of stress in Chickasaw, a Muskogean language spoken in south central Oklahoma. Three degrees of stress are differentiated acoustically, with primary stressed vowels having the highest f 0 and greatest duration and intensity, unstressed vowels having the lowest f 0 and shortest duration and intensity, and secondary stressed vowels displaying intermediate f 0, duration, and intensity values. Vowel quality differences and segmental lenition processes also are diagnostic for stress. The location of stress is phonologically predictable, falling on word‐final syllables, heavy (CVC and CVV) syllables, and on the second in a sequence of light (CV) syllables. Short vowels in nonfinal open syllables are made heavy through a process of rhythmic vowel lengthening. Primary stress is sensitive to a further weight distinction, which treats CVV as heavier than both CV and CVC. In words lacking a CVV syllable, stress falls on the final syllable.

Yurok Syllable Weight

This paper examines syllable weight in Yurok, a highly endangered Algic language of northwestern California. A productive truncation process has only a two‐way weight contrast between light and heavy syllables, shortening nouns to a bimoraic word minimum, CVV or CVC. Within the prominence system, however, CVV and CVC syllables must be distinguished. Syllables with long vowels in Yurok always attract stress and are realized with a steady high pitch on the stressed syllable, while CVC syllables do not attract stress. Additional issues addressed include the syllabification of preglottalized sonorants and laryngeal codas.

HESSELMAN'S LAW, PROKOSCH'S LAW, AND MORAIC PRESERVATION IN THE GERMANIC QUANTITY SHIFT

According to Hesselman's Law, lengthenings in closed syllables (CSL) precede lengthenings in open syllables (OSL). This paper surveys dialectal and philological evidence from North Germanic and Upper German in support of Hesselman's Law. The paper argues that CSL serves as a catalyst for OSL. After CSL, short vowels are always followed by long consonants and short consonants are always preceded by long vowels in stressed heavy syllables, a pattern consistent with crosslinguistic tendencies for V/C duration ratios. OSL occurs when language learners extend the pattern by lengthening short vowels followed by heterosyllabic short consonants. The Moraic Preservation Principle (MPP) accounts for the precedence of CSL over OSL despite the preference for bimoraic stressed syllables in Germanic known as Prokosch's Law. A generalization of the Moraic Conservation Principle proposed by Hayes (1989), the MPP states that lengthening processes preserve mora count. CSL does not violate MPP since it results in a bimoraic syllable remaining bimoraic. However, OSL constitutes a violation of MPP by adding to the mora count of the word.I would like to thank two anonymous JGL reviewers and Mark Louden for helpful comments and suggestions.

Conflicting directionality

Certain kinds of complex phenomena serve as testing and proving grounds in phonology as theories develop and change. Cases of what I will call CONFLICTING DIRECTIONALITY, exemplified by the stress pattern in Selkup (Ostyak-Samoyed) in (1), constitute one such phenomenon (Halle & Clements 1983, Idsardi 1992). This pattern, first discussed for Eastern Cheremis by Kiparsky (1973) (from Itkonen 1955), has informed all major theories of stress (Hayes 1981, 1995, Prince 1983, Halle & Vergnaud 1987, Kenstowicz 1995, Halle & Idsardi 1995, among others). Descriptively, in Selkup the rightmost heavy (CVV) syllable receives the stress (1a), but if the word contains no heavy syllables, it is the leftmost syllable which is stressed (1b). The term CONFLICTING DIRECTIONALITY describes this elsewhere relationship between the right and left edges of a word. No theory of stress is complete if it cannot account for this pattern.

The intonational structure of Chickasaw

Relatively little instrumental work has been done on the intonational structure of American Indian languages. This study investigates the intonation of Chickasaw, an American Indian language belonging to the Muskogean family, following Pierrehumbert’s [The Phonology and Phonetics of EnglishIntonation (MIT, Cambridge, MA, 1980)] intonation framework. Preliminary results suggest certain interesting intonational features in Chickasaw. Declarative intonational phrases with neutral subject–object–verb word order are marked with a high boundary tone, whereas interrogative intonational phrases are signaled with a low boundary tone. In both types of phrases, a high nuclear pitch accent docks onto the right-most heavy syllable in the verb, where heavy is equivalent to CVV, CVC, or CV in a metrically prominent position. Data also show that an intonational phrase in Chickasaw consists of one or more accentual phrases. Accentual phrases consisting of a single word begin with a low tone, and receive a high tone both on the second syllable and the final syllable of the phrase: LHH pattern. The initial low tone of the accentual phrase is typically not realized in words with fewer than three syllables. Accentual phrases consisting of more than one word and the effect of focus on intonation will also be considered.

The roles of the syllable and the mora in Japanese: Adaptation of French words

In Japanese adaptations of French words, we find two principal mechanisms that show the roles of the syllable and the mora: (1) syllable structure adjustment, which syllabifies French segments into well-formed Japanese syllables by means of vowel epenthesis; (2) syllable weight preservation, which creates heavy syllables for French word-final syllables closed by a single consonant or by an obstruent-liquid cluster, which are perceived by Japanese speakers as being heavy (i.e., containing two moras). Depending on various conditions, such heavy syllables are created either by lengthening the vowel or by geminating the final consonant

Do English-learning infants use syllable weight to determine stress?

A linguistic factor governing the assignment of English lexical stress is syllable weight. Heavy syllables which have either a long (tense) vowel or are closed with a consonant are heavy and automatically bear stress. Are infants sensitive to this aspect of the English stress system? Previous research by Jusczyk, Cutler, and Redanz (1993) showed that nine-month-olds listened longer to words exhibiting Strong-Weak than Weak-Strong stress pattern. However, they did not investigate the role of syllable weight in this preference. A series of three experiments explored infants' preference for Strong-Weak versus Weak-Strong lists, but systematically manipulated the syllable weight of Strong syllables. The results suggest that syllable weight is not a necessary component of the Strong-Weak preference observed in previous studies. Rather it appears that infants prefer both words that begin with a Strong syllable and Strong syllables that are heavy. Thus, the results suggest that sensitivity to surface linguistic patterns and the principles that underlie them may be independent in early language acquisition.

Alternatives to the iambic-trochaic law

This article seeks to develop alternatives to recent theories (Hayes 1985, 1987, 1991; McCarthy and Prince 1986, 1990; Prince 1991) that explain quantitative asymmetries between iambic and trochaic systems on the basis of a rhythmiciambic-trochaic law. The theory proposed here derives such asymmetries from two different rhythmic factors: moraic prominence-relations internal to heavy syllables, and avoidance of clash and lapse in sequences of moras. Firstly, it argues for a distinction between parsing feet and surface feet. Parsing feet draw from a symmetric foot inventory, based on two parameters:stressable element (mora vs. syllable), andheadedness (iambic vs. trochaic). That is, the basic foot inventory is no longer governed by the iambic-trochaic law. Secondly, parsing feet are mapped into surface feet by rules that impose quantitative changes, or by stray adjunction, induced by strict prosodic layering. Thirdly, a rhythmic sub-theory defines filters that rule out clashes and lapses in sequences of moras or syllables, depending on the type of stressable element. It explains iambic-trochaic asymmetries with respect to lengthening and shortening, and an asymmetry with respect to directionality of iambic parsing. Evidence will be presented from Tubatulabal, Yidiny, Araucanian, Chugach Alutiiq Yupik, Cayuga, Latin, and English.

Syllable Quantity in Late Latin Clausulae

IN 1960 SILVIA JANNACCONE WARNED that le clausole di Ammiano ... da sole non permettono deduzioni di ordine fonetico e morfologico scientificamente soddisfacenti. ' In 1977 Devine and Stephens concurred for late Latin clausulae in general as regards the hypotheses of Harmon and Hagendahl concerning qu.2 The statistically controlled demonstration by Hall and Oberhelman of the linguistic reality and prevalence of the cursus mixtus from Arnobius to Ennodius,3 however, suggests a new research design which, I believe, not only rehabilitates late Latin clausulae as an important source of phonological evidence, but, at the very least, establishes a number of striking regularities that must be considered by any student of Latin prose rhythm. In the cursus mixtus system of prose rhythm clausulae conform to both one of the accentual cursus (planus, tardus, or velox; see below) and one of the quantitative types (cretic-spondee, dicretic, cretic-tribrach, or ditrochee). In this paper S indicates a linguistic syllable, S a stressed syllable, S a heavy syllable, S a light syllable, S a syllable that occurs in anceps position, # a word boundary, and (#) an optional word boundary. Accordingly the (accentually defined) planus may be represented as (#)SSSSS#, e.g., mente

The Musical Quality of Goldsmith's The Deserted Village

The Musical Quality of Goldsmith's The Deserted Village

Light and Heavy Syllables as Dramatic Colouring in Plautus and Others

Our purpose is protreptic, to broach a subject neglected by researchers and consequently by commentators on Plautus and Terence.1 We mean the relation of rhythm and dramatic meaning in the ordinary stichic iambo-trochaic metres. It is of course a longstanding convention that a commentator writing in usum scholarum will include some account of the basic rules of scansion and prosody and a conspectus metrorum of sorts. Ambitious efforts may be made to analyse the polymetric songs in Plautus, if to label cola is analysis; but there are notorious difficulties in this, for the songs are astrophic and polymorphous, the colometry is uncertain, and it cannot be said that we fully understand the range or relationship of the elements out of which the songs are constructed, or that the rules of prosody in the cantica have been definitively established. Under the circumstances it is understandable that commentators refrain except in the most general terms from relating rhythm to dramatic context in the songs. But it is different with the iambo-trochaic metres. We are on firmer ground here, and there is more of it. Commentators will draw attention to aspects of the playwright's diction such as alliteration, assonance, triadic expression, hyperbaton, and so on, by which emphasis and dramatic ‘colouring’ may be indicated. But very little attention is given to the dramatic and tonal implications of the texture of the iambo-trochaic metres as used for whole scenes or in particular exchanges. This is a pity, because Plautus and the tragedians and even Terence can be shown to have exploited the latitude of realization allowed by ‘the rules’ to underpin the sense of a passage or an exchange.

A Rhythmic Model of English

The subjective impression that English tends to be spoken rhythmically-that is, with recurrent alternations of stronger and weaker elements-is apparently due chiefly to the rhythmic recession of accents: potentially accentable prenuclear heavy syllables tend to be realized as unaccented if flanked closely by neighboring accented syllables. Accent, though it usually augments the duration of the affected syllable, is primarily manifested by a pitch obtrusion. Despite the myth of isochronism, it takes longer to get from one accented syllable to the next if several unaccented syllables intervene, even if all are light (hence, cet, par., short), than if only one or none does. The durational factors needed, e.g., to synthesize natural-sounding speech (leaving aside such paralinguistic effects as pauses, hesitations, and abrupt changes of speech rate) are (a) inherent syllable duration, depending on phonematic makeup; syllable weight (heavy ones are longer, cet. par.); accent (accented syllables are longer, cet. par.); and location in sense group (terminal syllables are drawled). Rhythmic can be used loosely to refer to differences in any of these factors, but in the strict sense English is better described as arrhythmic.