Prosodic Constituents Research Articles

The syntax-prosody interface: current theoretical approaches and outstanding questions

AbstractThe syntax-prosody interface concerns the relationship between syntactic and prosodic constituent structure. This paper provides an overview of theoretical advances in research on the syntax-prosody interface. Current theoretical work is situated historically, and is framed in light of the central research questions in the field, including (a) to what extent prosodic structure can be used as a diagnostic for syntactic constituent structure, (b) the significance of recursion in prosodic theory, and (c) how mismatches between syntactic and prosodic constituent structure are modeled in different approaches to the syntax-prosody interface. The paper concludes with a discussion of the current state of the field and directions for future research.

On prosodic variation and the distribution ofwh-in-situ

AbstractWh- in-situ is a pervasive feature of Tano interrogative syntax, yet the Tano languages differ from one another in subtle ways with respect to the distribution of in-situ interrogatives. Languages like Krachi and Bono allowwh- in-situ in both main and embedded complement clauses, whereas closely related languages like Wasa and Asante Twi only allowwh- in-situ in main clauses. In this article, I argue that the generalization underpinning this variation in Tano concerns a prohibition onwh- items phrasing with C0at the level of Intonational Phrase (ιP). I show that the ability of awh- item to appear in-situ correlates with the prosodic status of its immediately containing clause. Embedded complement clauses are parsed as independent ιP units in Krachi and Bono, but not in Wasa and Asante Twi. Thus, ιP boundaries divide C0from embedded interrogatives in Krachi and Bono, preventing the items from forming a prosodic constituent at the level of ιP. Conversely, no such boundaries intervene between embedded C0andwh- in Wasa and Asante Twi, yielding prosodic mappings in which the items phrase together. Consequently, embeddedwh- in-situ is prosodically licit in Krachi and Bono, but not in Wasa and Asante Twi. In this way, the Tano pattern ofwh- in-situ variation described above reduces to a difference in how syntactic structures are externalized via prosodic mapping.

Prosodic words in cyclic derivation: the strange case of Murrinhpatha compound verbs

Lexical compounding generally works by adjoining a second lexeme either directly to the stem of the first lexeme (as in [sabre-[tooth]]-s), or to the whole inflected form of the first lexeme (as in [milk-[teeth]]). Murrinhpatha presents a third distinct type, where the adjoined lexeme is attached to a prosodic edge, which may occur either before or after various inflectional affixes, rather than attaching to a fixed morphosyntactic host. “Prosodic compounding” of this type has not been previously attested in natural language. However, I argue that in Stratal Phonology (Bermudez-Otero 2016), where prosodic constituents are formed and reformed on distinct morphological strata, we may formulate a motivated account in which prosodic compounding fills a typological gap. This account of Murrinhpatha verb morphology offers a structurally motivated alternative to previous accounts that posit a purely stipulative morphotactic template.

Universal Grammar and second language phonology: Full Transfer / Prevalent Access in the L2 Acquisition of Turkish “Stress” by English and French Speakers

ABSTRACTThis article explores the role of transfer and Universal Grammar (UG) in second language (L2) phonology by investigating the L2 acquisition of stress/prominence in footless languages, such as Turkish and French, which have fixed word- and phrase-final prominence respectively. It is proposed that once the prosodic constituent Foot is projected in a footed first language (L1), such as English, it is impossible to expunge it from the grammar in learning a footless L2. Learners in this condition will, instead, be restricted to resetting parameters that act on the Foot (e.g. trochaic/iambic, iterative/non-iterative, weight-sensitive/weight-insensitive). In order to investigate these predictions, a semi-controlled production experiment was conducted with English- and French-speaking learners of L2 Turkish, of various proficiency levels. The results largely confirm our predictions. None of the English-speaking subjects were able to rid their grammar of the Foot. They were, however, able to make various UG-constrained changes to their grammar, such as resetting Extrametricality from Yes to No, and later, Foot-Type from Trochaic to Iambic, thereby having increasingly more word types with word-final (but footed) stress. French-speaking learners, on the other hand, produced target-like footless outputs from the beginning, with word-final prominence. The findings provide strong evidence for UG-based theories of L2 acquisition: (i) interlanguage grammars, even when non-targetlike, are ‘possible’ grammars, paralleling other natural languages, (ii) options ruled out by UG, such as weight-insensitive iambs, are not employed, despite such a stage being cognitively most reasonable, and (iii) grammar change is brought along on a parameter-by-parameter basis, instead of being reflective of frequency.

Overlap of prosodic constituents in Old Souletin Basque

Overlap of prosodic constituents in Old Souletin Basque

Predicting prosodic structure by morphosyntactic category: A case study of Blackfoot

This study examines phonetic correlates to three prosodic categories in Blackfoot: the syllable (σ), the prosodic word (ω), and the phonological phrase (φ). I provide evidence that the Blackfoot σ is recognizable by an obligatory process of vowel coalescence and the φ is recognizable by an obligatory process of right edge aspiration. The ω can be distinguished from these other two prosodic constituents by an optional phonetic process which mimics intersyllabic vowel coalescence, but does not apply obligatorily.The prosodic categories investigated in this study are then correlated to three morphosyntactic categories: morphological agreement suffixes, lexical morphemes (adjectives and nouns), and demonstratives. This correlation is used to argue that morphological and syntactic processes function differently at the interface with phonology (cf. Russell 1999), ultimately raising questions with “word-internal syntax” analyses of Blackfoot suffixation which are derived through cyclic head movement (Bliss 2013; Wiltschko 2014) using the Mirror Principle (Baker 1985).This article is part of the Special Collection: Prosody and costituent structure

Acoustic evidence for prosodic units in Navajo

Although prosody and intonation are generally considered to be linguistic universals, the few prosodic studies of Navajo, a Southern Athabaskan language spoken in the American Southwest, report a lack of meaningful intonation (McDonough 1999; McDonough 2002). This paper revisits the question of Navajo prosody, presenting the results of a quantitative analysis of acoustic correlates of prosodic constituents in personal narratives. Building on previous studies of Athabaskan prosody (Berez 2011; Lovick and Tuttle 2012), the present work employs mixed-effects linear modeling to examine pitch (F0) reset and syllable and pause duration at different prosodic and syntactic boundaries. Results provide evidence for both intonational units marked by final syllable lengthening and also larger prosodic sentences cued by pauses and pitch reset. Furthermore, the demarcation of prosodic units is statistically more robust than clause boundaries, underscoring the orthogonal relationship between prosodic and syntactic structure. These data suggest that Navajo does have systematic prosody, but the cues may only be identifiable in larger stretches of connected speech, rather than individual words or phrases. Results are compared with other work in the small, but growing typological literature on intonational characteristics of large prosodic units.

Phasal Syntax = Cyclic Phonology?

AbstractThis paper addresses three central questions in the phonology–syntax interface: What does phonology know about syntax? Does phrasal phonology “know” about syntax directly or indirectly (i.e., mediated by prosodic constituents such as Intonation Phrase)? When does the phonology–syntax interaction take place? Most current phase‐based theories of the interface assume a strict cyclic model of derivation, in which the output of each spell‐out domain directly feeds the phonology. We argue instead for an indirect model in which phonology is mainly conditioned by phase edges and accesses syntax only when the syntactic derivation is complete. We motivate the model mainly with data from Bantu languages that have played a leading role in the development of current theories of the phonology–syntax interface.

Lightest to the Right: An Apparently Anomalous Displacement in Irish

This article analyzes mismatches between syntactic and prosodic constituency in Irish and attempts to understand those mismatches in terms of recent proposals about the nature of the syntax-prosody interface. It argues in particular that such mismatches are best understood in terms of Selkirk’s (2011) Match Theory, working in concert with constraints concerned with rhythm and phonological balance. An apparently anomalous rightward movement that seems to target certain pronouns and shift them rightward is shown to be fundamentally a phonological process: a prosodic response to a prosodic dilemma. The article thereby adds to a growing body of evidence for the role of phonological factors in shaping constituent order.

A prosodic account of -yo attachment in Korean

In this article we offer a prosodic account for the sentence-medial attachment phenomenon of the particle -yo in Korean. Adopting a derivational approach to prosodic hierarchy formation, we argue that once the particle attaches to the edge of a prosodic unit that Spell-Out defines, it has to be placed at the edge of a prosodic constituent throughout the prosodic derivation. We show that this prosodic account also provides an uncomplicated explanation for certain phenomena which remain puzzling for previous syntactic/morphological analyses.

Prosody and the Acquisition of Hierarchical Structure in Toddlers and Adults

Though language manifests linearly, one word at a time, children must learn that words are embedded in constituents, which are in turn embedded in larger constituents. That is, they must learn that syntax is hierarchically structured. Prosody—speech melody and rhythm—is likewise hierarchically organized, with smaller prosodic constituents embedded in larger ones. This paper presents results showing that 20-month-olds (N = 40) can use modifier + clause prosody to learn constituents at multiple levels in a hierarchically structured artificial grammar, but that they fail to learn from clause + modifier prosody. We consider several explanations for this asymmetry, and suggest that it may be due to the frequency of the two constructions in the input. Two parallel experiments with adults suggest that older learners may not be able to learn the prosodically marked constituents. Instead, adult responses are likely based on perceptually prominent boundary words.

Aproximación preliminar al sintagma fonológico en español

Although the prosodic hierarchy has been well established in phonological theory for decades, little empirical work on its higher constituents has been done on Spanish. This study examines two well-known phonological processes in Spanish (spirantization of voiced plosives and fricative sibilant voicing in coda position) as possible parameters in the delimitation of phonological phrases. The data analyzed have been gathered from two native Spanish speakers from the Central Peninsular variety of Spanish, who read 334 stimuli created for that purpose. The results suggest that there is a phonological phrase boundary between the subject and the verb, especially in long subjects. Other syntactic structures seem to be mapped as prosodic constituents of lower or higher levels (prosodic words and intonational phrases, respectively).

Modular PIC

This article argues that there can only be one chunk-defining device in grammar: a theory cannot afford to have the same work done twice, once by phases, a second time by prosodic constituency. As it stands, however, phase theory is unable to describe all phonologically relevant chunks; these are too small and too diverse to be delineated. To qualify as the only chunk-defining device in grammar, phase theory therefore needs to be made more flexible—that is, to be adapted to the demands of phonology. To allow phase theory to describe all phonologically relevant chunks, we propose the separation of the Spell-Out operation from the Phase Impenetrability Condition (PIC). When Spell-Out occurs, every access point may or may not be associated with a PIC at PF, and the same optional endowment with a PIC holds for syntax. This is what we call Modular PIC. Empirically, on the basis of Abruzzese raddoppiamento fonosintattico and data from Bantu, we show that PIC effects in syntax and phonology are entirely independent: a given Spell-Out operation may leave traces in both modules, in either one, or in neither.

Prosodic stems in Zezuru Shona

In the traditional Prosodic Hierarchy, the Prosodic Word is the lowest level of the hierarchy defined in terms of the interface between morphosyntactic and prosodic constituents. Recent work by Itô and Mester reaffirms this, defining Prosodic Word as matching the syntactic category X (N, V, and offering no sub-lexical constituents. In this article, we present empirical arguments in favour of the Prosodic Stem as a level of the Prosodic Hierarchy, immediately dominated by Prosodic Word. Minimality effects, tone and vowel hiatus resolution processes in Zezuru demonstrate that Prosodic Stem and Prosodic Word levels play distinct roles; they are domains for different phonological processes. Thus, we argue that more constituents of the Prosodic Hierarchy are needed, where the Prosodic Stem domain is distinct from the Prosodic Word.

The Effect of Contextual Consonants on Voiced Stop Lenition: Evidence from Catalan.

Abstract This study uses acoustic energy measures for /b, d, g/ after /f, s, ∫, l, r/ in Catalan in order to test whether postconsonantal voiced stop lenition is ruled by minimization of articulatory effort, acoustico-perceptual continuity of an ongoing prosodic constituent or some other principle of articulatory organization. Data for eight speakers reveal that lenition is more prone to operate on /g/ than on /b, d/, after a sonorant than after a fricative, and when the two cluster consonants are heterorganic than when they are (quasi)-homorganic. Moreover, a positive correlation was found to hold between the degrees of stop lenition and stop voicing. The /fC/ sequences had an exceptional behaviour since, in comparison to other consonants appearing in CI position, /f/ was at the same time less intense and triggered more stop-like realizations of /b, d, g/. These results indicate that, while regularly treated as a phonological process, postconsonantal voiced stop lenition in Catalan is subject to much contextual variability, and should be dealt with by a production-based model which takes into consideration several articulatory and aerodynamic factors such as constriction degree and intraoral pressure level for C1 and C2, as well as homorganicity degree between the two consecutive consonants.

The perfect prosodic word in Danish

The Danishstød, a kind of glottal prosody associated with certain syllables, as inbarʔn‘child’ (cf. stødlessbarnlig‘childish’), has long been the target of intense phonological investigation. In this paper, we show that its analysis requires an understanding of the prosodic constituent structure of Danish, and of the essential role of theperfect prosodic word(coextensive with one foot). After motivating this notion on independent grounds, both in other languages and in the context of acquisition, we show that the Danish stød system, analyzed in Optimality Theory, provides a window on the workings of the perfect prosodic word, regulating the presence and absence of stød in some of the much-discussed cases in the literature. In conclusion, we discuss the status of the perfect prosodic word in the light of recent developments in phonological theory, such as Match Theory.

On Prosodic Vacuity and Verbal Resumption in Asante Twi

I argue that verbal resumption (the occurrence of an additional default verbal element yε meaning ‘do’) in Asante Twi is prosodically conditioned. Following the MATCH theory of syntactic-prosodic constituency correspondence ( Selkirk 2011 ), I propose that phonosyntactic constituency matching requires, at the minimum, avoidance of phonetically empty transferred syntactic structures (i.e., prosodic vacuity). I show that Twi verbal resumption is highly constrained and occurs precisely in those contexts where a prosodically vacuous domain would otherwise be mapped from a fully evacuated syntactic Spell- Out domain. As a measure of last resort, a late default-form insertion of the verb root (the yε-form) occurs to evade prosodic vacuity and ensure a matching correspondence between syntactic and prosodic constituents at PF. Because an additional higher copy of the verb root (i.e., the lexical verb) survives as well, Twi verbal resumption represents an instance of multiple copy Spell-Out. The article thus bears on several issues concerning the syntax-phonology interface, among them the nature of prosodic mapping and the conditions regulating multiple copy realization.

Prosodic Repulsion in English and Cairene Arabic

This paper provides an introduction to the concept of prosodic repulsion, a force of resistance between phonological entities that is proposed to account for several seemingly disparate and heretofore unconnected phonological phenomena across human languages. Three basic aspects of phonological structure (i.e. nonfinality in metrical structure, onsets in syllable structure and binarity in foot structure) are reconsidered through the lens of prosodic repulsion as an introduction, and it is demonstrated that each of these aspects of phonological structure can be understood as the result of resistance between an element of a prosodic constituent and an edge of that constituent. Two case studies are then presented in order to demonstrate some of the ways in which the concept of prosodic repulsion can be applied to the re-analysis of old problems. In the first of these, a constraint banning word-final strong morae is proposed to account for the disparity in English between words with final stressed bimoraic syllables such as kangaroo and words with final unstressed bimoraic syllables such as buffalo. In the second case study, a constraint banning word-final morae from being parsed into feet is proposed to account for the notoriously complex pattern of stress in Cairene Arabic. Both of the proposed constraints crucially involve the resistance of moraic elements to the edge of the prosodic word, representing a specific subtype of prosodic repulsion constraints that are referred to above as moraic resistance constraints.

Recursion in prosodic phrasing: evidence from Connemara Irish

One function of prosodic phrasing is its role in aiding in the recoverability of syntactic structure. In recent years, a growing body of work suggests it is possible to find concrete phonetic and phonological evidence that recursion in syntactic structure is preserved in the prosodic organization of utterances (Ladd 1986, 1988; Kubozono 1989, 1992; Fery and Truckenbrodt 2005; Wagner 2005, 2010; Selkirk 2009, 2011; Ito and Mester 2013; Myrberg 2013). This paper argues that the distribution of phrase-level phrase accents in Connemara Irish provides a new type of evidence in favour of this hypothesis: that, under ideal conditions, syntactic constituents are mapped onto prosodic constituents in a one-to-one fashion, such that information about the nested relationships between syntactic constituents is preserved through the recursion of prosodic domains. Through an empirical investigation of both clausal and nominal constructions, I argue that the distribution of phrasal phrase accents in Connemara Irish can be used as a means of identifying recursive bracketing in prosodic structure.

Prosodic boundaries effect on segment articulation in standard Chinese: An articulatory and acoustic study

This paper presents an electropalatographic (EPG) and acoustic study of prosodic boundaries effect on the domain-initial segments in Standard Chinese. Two speech sounds, namely, the voiceless unaspirated alveolar stop /t/ and the high front vowel /i/, were studied to examine the domain-initial strengthening in both spatial and temporal dimensions. The articulatory and acoustic parameters of the speech sounds were compared in initial positions of five prosodic constituents in Standard Chinese, namely, a Syllable, a Foot, an Immediate Phrase, an Intonational Phrase, and an Utterance. The results show that: (1) the production of the domain-initial consonantal gesture was prosodically encoded. The linguopalatal contact and the seal duration varied as a function of the prosodic boundary strength. The linguopalatal contact was dependent on the seal duration in a nonlinear fashion. Of the acoustic properties of the domain-initial stop, the total voiceless interval and voicing during closure were found to be reliable acoustic correlates that mark the hierarchical structure of the prosody. (2) At the release moment of the domain-initial stop, no consistent pattern was found to support the domain-initial strengthening. The linguopalatal contact of the vowel immediately following the domain-initial consonant did not show a clear trend of domain-initial strengthening; however, the phonatory features of vowels were indicative of pitch reset at major prosodic boundaries. These indicate that the domain-initial strengthening is restricted on the segment immediately following the boundary. In conclusion Standard Chinese strengthens the phonetic features of the domain-initial segments as a function of boundary strength, which serves as an important way to mark prosodic structure in Standard Chinese.