Prosodic Foot Research Articles

Rethinking the Metre of Parzival: Iambic Verse for a Trochaic Language

AbstractThe Middle High German (MHG) prosodic foot is uncontroversially considered to be trochaic, a fact which has traditionally led scholars to assume a preference for trochaic metre in poetry of the MHG Classical Period. However, given the trend elsewhere in mediaeval Europe (even in trochaic languages) to emulate French lyrics and compose verse in iambic metre, the uncritical assumption of a trochaic metre in all MHG poetry seems inadequate. A close examination of Parzival, an early thirteenth‐century grail romance by Wolfram von Eschenbach, suggests that the traditional analysis is not only insufficient but counter to the linguistic evidence. This paper argues for the first time that Parzival was in fact composed in iambic tetrameter, based on a close analysis of the rhythmic alternations within lines and the quantity and foot structure of line‐final syllables. Halle & Keyser's (1966) principles for iambic metre were used to produce a taxonomy of possible line structures in Parzival and the dominance of the wswswsws pattern, beginning on a weak beat and ending on a strong, offers convincing evidence in favour of iambic metre. The remaining lines can be neatly categorised as iambic by allowing feminine rhyme (with an extrametrical schwa syllable) or the construction of monosyllabic feet from a single heavy syllable. This analysis is further corroborated by the consistently iambic structure of line‐final feet, as well as the foot structures avoided by the poet, identified according to the weight of the final, penultimate and antepenultimate syllables. The present analysis has the advantage of explaining the various patterns of alternating prominence in the metre of Parzival much more consistently than the complex system advocated by the traditional literary view.

The prosodic foot beyond prosodic prominence: a preliminary survey

Abstract This paper presents a preliminary survey of foot-sensitive phenomena and foot structure separate from prosodic prominence or classifications such as ‘iambic’ and ‘trochaic’. It considers the evidence for and structure of the foot in a sample of 30 languages which demonstrate at least one foot-sensitive phenomenon which cannot be attributed to prosodic prominence. It finds that in the sample, there is considerable diversity in terms of: a) the type of evidence for and role played by the foot, b) the extent to which there is evidence for the foot, and c) the segmental structure of the foot. These findings demonstrate that the role of the foot is more diverse than often characterised. The findings of this paper also demonstrate that cross-linguistic differences between foot structures are more fine-grained than differences in the distribution of prosodic prominence or syllable weight; accounting for the diversity observed requires reference to the segmental structure of feet. In light of these findings, this paper calls for more examination of the prosodic foot separate from prosodic prominence, and which takes into consideration the variables of cross-linguistic diversity documented here.

The secret morphology of Tashlhiyt Berber

Abstract Two secret languages used in Tashlhiyt Berber are reported in work by Douchaïna (1996, 1998) and Lahrouchi & Ségéral (2009, 2010ab): Tagnawt and Taqjmit. I propose that they should both be analyzed as instances of prosodic morphology, employing the same prosodic morpheme [L.LL.L]. Prosodic morphemes are common in the regular morphology of Tashlhiyt: the prosodic foot [LL] for the imperfective and Tifrdi, the prosodic word [H.H] for Ukris, and [L.H.L] for Tirrugza, Abnakli and Azddayru (Jebbour 1999, Dell & Elmedlaoui 1992). The prosodic shape [L.LL.L] of the secret languages fills out the paradigm as a variant of [L.H.L], which appears marginally in the secret languages. The shapes [L.LL.L] and [L.H.L] are found also in Tashlhiyt verse metrics, where they form a natural class of verse feet, alternating with the anapest [LL.H] (Dell & Elmedlaoui 2008, Riad 2017). Based in part on the striking shape parallels in Tashlhiyt, I argue that there is an organic connection between prosodic morphemes and the prosodic categories employed in verse. Furthermore, the simultaneous prosodic structures that we find in verse metrics—regular prosody and meter—are applicable also to prosodic morphology, particularly clearly so in root-and-pattern formations.

A Practical Poetics for Orality: Nnabuenyi Ugonna's “Igidi” and Ezenwa-Ohaeto's Poetics and <em>The Voice of the Night Masquerade</em>

The "igidi," a culturally relevant tool in literary criticism, is important in Nnabuenyi Ugonna's study of the dramatic aspects of the Igbo ancestral mask in Mmonwu: A Dramatic Tradition of the Igbo. The "igidi," as an equivalent to a prosodic foot, is Ugonna's solution to the problem of suitability in the analyses of Igbo mask chants. The "igidi" in this instance is such a culturally relevant tool. Similarly, Ezenwa-Ohaeto, in his text Contemporary Nigerian Poetry and the Poetics of Orality, advocates for a unique poetics for the criticism of contemporary oral texts. He postulates and applies this framework to critiques of poems featured in the text. In this article, a combination of "igidi," the poetics of orality, and context-based pragmatic analyses, which was developed into "universalist relativism," the author's construct is applied to select lines of The Voice of the Night Masquerade. This paper effectively negotiates the literary legacy of orality, its applications, and contemporaneity through a coherent poetics and argues for their application in wider scopes and texts.

An investigation on syntactic disambiguation in Mandarin speech perception and the phonological status of the disyllabic foot

In light of the high frequency of disyllabic words in modern Chinese and the “default” phonological status held by the disyllabic prosodic foot in speech production, we conducted a series of psycholinguistic experiments to determine whether the quantitative property of prosodic feet has a significant influence when parsing syntactically ambiguous utterances in speech perception. More specifically, without contextual or acoustic cues, would native Mandarin speakers be biased towards disyllabic structures when listening to six-syllable utterances that can be parsed into syntactically similar structures composed entirely of disyllabic or trisyllabic feet? Results indicate that, Mandarin speakers tend to parse ambiguous utterances initially into one of the two possible syntactic structures rather than simply recognizing them as ambiguous. Nonetheless, they do not favour disyllabic structures when lexical information regarding word meaning, syntactic function, usage frequency, etc. is available. However, when parsing sequences of six random digits where lexical and syntactic information is irrelevant, our results point to a clear preferential tendency towards disyllabic grouping. In other words, the quantitative property of prosodic feet plays a significant role in Mandarin speech parsing only when lexical and syntactic information is irrelevant or unavailable.

An investigation on syntactic disambiguation in Mandarin speech perception and the phonological status of the disyllabic foot

In light of the high frequency of disyllabic words in modern Chinese and the "default" phonological status held by the disyllabic prosodic foot in speech production, we conducted a series of psycholinguistic experiments to determine whether the quantitative property of prosodic feet has a significant influence when parsing syntactically ambiguous utterances in speech perception. More specifically, without contextual or acoustic cues, would native Mandarin speakers be biased towards disyllabic structures when listening to six-syllable utterances that can be parsed into syntactically similar structures composed entirely of disyllabic or trisyllabic feet? Results indicate that, Mandarin speakers tend to parse ambiguous utterances initially into one of the two possible syntactic structures rather than simply recognizing them as ambiguous. Nonetheless, they do not favour disyllabic structures when lexical information regarding word meaning, syntactic function, usage frequency, etc. is available. However, when parsing sequences of six random digits where lexical and syntactic information is irrelevant, our results point to a clear preferential tendency towards disyllabic grouping. In other words, the quantitative property of prosodic feet plays a significant role in Mandarin speech parsing only when lexical and syntactic information is irrelevant or unavailable.

Shakespeare's Feet: Puns, Metre, Meaning

AbstractThis essay attempts to explain one of Shakespeare's strangest stage directions, at the end of Coriolanus. To do so, it looks at one of Shakespeare's most‐used puns: the way a ‘foot’ can be an anatomical foot or a prosodic foot. In Shakespeare's writing, this punning relationship between anatomical and prosodic feet speeds or slows verse, characterises personages like Iago, and even rescues poetry from the ravages of time. The reason, it transpires, this pun works so well in Shakespeare's writing is that it speaks to the ways in which metre operates in a manner akin to pun: prising multiple interpretations from words in order to prize them.

Non-concatenative allomorphy is generalized prosodic affixation: The case of Upriver Halkomelem

I argue that the continuative aspect in Upriver Halkomelem is marked by a morpheme consisting of a segmentally empty prosodic foot. Since there are different strategies to fill a prosodic foot with segmental material, such an analysis predicts the non-concatenative allomorphy between epenthesis, stress shift, vowel lengthening, and reduplication that we find in the continuative formation of Upriver Halkomelem. The analysis is situated in the line of research termed ‘Generalized Nonlinear Affixation’ by Bermúdez-Otero (2012) that strives to derive all instances of non-concatenative morphology without any additional assumptions simply from affixation of nonlinear phonological representations that are independently motivated.

Moraic Feet in Prakrit Metrics: A Constraint‐Based Approach

AbstractThe traditional description of the gaṇacchandas family of metres of Sanskrit and Prakrit literature, of which the āryā metre is the best known, refers to gaṇas or ‘groups’ of mātrās. Mātrās correspond to the ‘moras’ of modern phonology. In this paper the āryā is given a detailed analysis on the basis of the traditional description and the empirical data provided by its use in an early Prakrit anthology, the Sattasaī. Several new metrical phenomena are identified, and the incidence of syllabic patterns, rhythmic structures, word boundaries, and stress are considered. The prosodic foot is shown to play an important role in the regulation of the āryā’s categorical and gradient patterns. This analysis uses Optimality Theory to account for both kinds of patterns and supports recent research that holds partially ranked constraints responsible for gradient patterns in metrical corpora. Other theories, which derive metrical structure by bottom‐up rules, fail to account for the āryā’s characteristic patterns.

Thinking Limping

In a recent interview for Mouvement, the theatre-maker Richard Maxwell notes that: ‘In theatre, we are faced by a paradox. There is the reality of the story and the reality of the place where the play unfolds. It operates within this paradox. Between these two elements … This paradox is present in everything I do’ (2011: 21). Maxwell's words here seem to signal an investment in both the recognition of the materiality of the stage environment as a specific location—whose specificity resides precisely in the audience relation—and an awareness of the ways in which what takes place there—representation in one form or another, however presentational it may appear—constructs an ‘elsewhere’ in the landscape of the spectator's imagination at the very least. This paper investigates the ways in which Neutral Hero seeks to combine an aesthetic of rigorous material subtraction in which the locus of the stage is inhabited as nothing other than the place it is with a dramaturgical ethic of ‘emancipated’ spectatorship that enables it to invoke an exhibitive and relational understanding of ontology and identity. It examines how, in Neutral Hero, the ‘dramatic’ is constructed and eschewed, arguing that it is in the materiality of the exchange of speech—rather than simply the embodied presence of the performer on stage—that the specificity of the theatre as location resides, in that ‘the voice is always for the ear, it is always relational’ (Cavarero 2005: 169). At the same time, it explores how the prosodic foot is always to be found in the actor's mouth—the Oedipal foot grounding the contemporary in the archaic form of tragedy—acting as a dramatic impediment to the movement of the theatrical.

Relations Between Segmental and Motor Variability in Prosodically Complex Nonword Sequences

To assess how prosodic prominence and hierarchical foot structure influence segmental and articulatory aspects of speech production, specifically segmental accuracy and variability, and oral movement trajectory variability. Thirty individuals participated: 10 young adults, 10 children who are normally developing, and 10 children diagnosed with specific language impairment. Segmental error and segmental variability and movement trajectory variability were compared in low and high prosodic prominence conditions (i.e., strong and weak syllables) and in different prosodic foot structures. Between-participants findings were that both groups of children showed more segmental error and segmental variability and more movement trajectory variability than did adults. A similar within-participant pattern of results was observed for all 3 groups. Prosodic prominence influenced both segmental and motor levels of analysis, with weak syllables produced less accurately and with more lip and jaw movement trajectory variability than strong syllables. However, hierarchical foot structure affected segmental but not motor measures of speech production accuracy and variability. Motor and segmental variables were not consistently aligned. This pattern of results has clinical implications because inferences about motor variability may not directly follow from observations of segmental variability.

Language learning

Language learning

Syntactic ambiguity resolution and the prosodic foot: Cross-language differences

In this study we examined syntactic ambiguity resolution in two different Chinese languages, Cantonese and Mandarin, which are relatively similar grammatically but very different phonologically. We did this using four-character sentences that could be read using two, two-syllable sequences (2-2) or a structure where the first syllable could be read by itself. The results showed that when both potential readings were semantically congruent, Mandarin speakers had a strong preference for the 2-2 structure and they preferred that structure much more than Cantonese speakers did. We attribute this to Mandarin having a more dominant bisyllabic prosodic foot than Cantonese. When the 2-2 meaning was semantically incongruent, however, the alternative structure was preferred by both Mandarin and Cantonese speakers. Overall, the results suggest that, in silent reading tasks and semantically neutral conditions, the prosodic foot is generated automatically and can affect syntactic choices when ambiguity arises.

An investigation of weak syllable processing in deaf children with cochlear implants

In this study the influence of prosodic foot structure on the processing of weak syllables in children with cochlear implants (CI) was investigated. A battery of tests investigating processing of weak syllables in single and multiword utterances was carried out on four groups of children: 15 children with CI developing spoken language as expected (Main CI); five children with CI reported to have additional speech and language problems; 15 age matched; and 15 language matched (LM) children with normal hearing (NH). Children in the main CI and, to a lesser extent, the LM groups processed footed weak syllables preferably over unfooted weak syllables (particularly as memory load increased). Thus, these children with CI appear to possess a similar Prosodic Hierarchy (PH) to their LM peers with NH, and possibly due to the impact of delayed and constrained exposure to audition on the development of linguistic processing and short‐term memory, are influenced by its foot structure in the processing of weak syllables.

Mapping of prosodic structure onto words and phrases in children's and adults' speech production

Direct recordings of lip and jaw movement were obtained to investigate how children and adults differentiate prosodic structure both within iambic and trochaic words and across word boundaries. It was hypothesised that children, especially those with less language skills, would be particularly likely to produce strong-weak (or trochaic) sequences. This experiment examined children's (both normally developing and specifically language impaired, aged 4–6 years) and adults’ productions of prosodic sequences that were controlled for syntactic and phonetic content, but that differed in rhythmic alternations, both within words (i. e., iambs vs. trochees) and across words (i. e., optimal strong-weak vs. stress gap or stress clash). To avoid final position effects, target words were in utterance internal position. Analyses included kinematic measures of prosodic structure (i. e., amplitude and duration of movements in weak vs. strong syllables; ratios of weak-to-strong movements). Consistent with prior work, weak syllables in iambs were produced differentially from those in trochees; though these effects were now observed in utterance position. However, in noun-noun sequences within a phrase, even when the rhythm rule was violated, prosodic foot structure was not reorganised as a function of rhythmic properties of the utterance. Overall, children with the least mature language skills demonstrated poor control of temporal and amplitude aspects of movement, especially in weak syllables. Findings are related to the organisation of speech production units across prosodic levels.

Effects of speaking rate and paragraph structure on the production of sentence prosody

Four speakers read each of eight paragraphs at four different speaking rates: Normal speaking rate and half, twice, and three times the normal rate. Each paragraph contained five sentences, one each of five types of syntactic structure: Early major syntactic break, early minor syntactic break, late major syntactic break, late minor syntactic break, or syntactic break midway through the sentence. Across paragraphs, sentences of the same syntactic type had the same prosodic foot structure, and the order of syntactic structures within paragraphs was counterbalanced. Care was also taken to make the paragraphs semantically coherent. Phonetic analyses of the prosodic structures produced for these paragraphs are presented, including absolute and relative duration measures for words and silences. In addition, listener judgments of perceived prosodic phrasing are presented. Results will be compared to the durational and pausing patterns predicted by current prosodic production algorithms (Ferreira, 1993; Gee and Grosjean, 1983). Prosodic variation due to speaking rate, syntactic structure, and paragraph structure will be discussed. [Order of authorship determined by multiple coin flips.]

Phonetically Low Tone–Phonologically High Tone, and Vice Versa

The phonological Highs and Lows of prosodic feet in East Norwegian utterances do not always coincide temporally with the phonetic Highs and Lows associated with the pitch contours characteristic of Accent 1 and Accent 2. This paper accounts for two distinct types of discrepancy between actual pitch level and perceived pitch level, i.e. phonological pitch level, in certain prosodically well-defined cases where pitch peaks appear to occur “too late”. In order to determine what is phonologically High or Low in a given prosodic foot, you often have to consider phonetic aspects of the pitch contours of the immediately preceding or the immediately following foot.