Mora stress in Shina as Contrastive Foot Structure

I argue that so-called ‘mora stress’ in Kohistani Shina (spoken in Northern Pakistan, realized as falling vs. rising accent) is best analyzed as a difference in the alignment of a LH* pitch accent to two types of feet (moraic vs. syllabic trochees). This paper offers a formalization of the mapping of (intonational) tones to foot structure and argues that independent evidence for a foot-based approach comes from a process of stress advancement, where stem stress predictably shifts to a following suffix when the final mora of the stem is accented; yet it remains on the stem when the stem accent is on a non-final mora. I end by briefly discussing typological and theoretical implications of our analysis, also drawing on a comparison with a similar advancement pattern in Lithuanian (known as de Saussure’s Law)

North Germanic Tonal Accent is Equipollent and Metrical: Evidence from Compounding

For the North Germanic opposition between two tonal accents, it has been claimed that Accent 2 has a lexical tone, that Accent 1 has a lexical tone, that both accents are marked tonally in the lexicon, or that the accent opposition is based on two types of feet. Based on evidence from compounding, we argue that the opposition between Accent 1 and Accent 2 is equipollent, and that this is best expressed in a foot-based approach since each lexical item will necessarily receive a foot. Elaborating on previous metrical work on tonal accent, we assume that binary feet can be built on moras (= Accent 1) or syllables (= Accent 2) and show how this successfully captures compound accentuation in Central Swedish and Urban East Norwegian. Our foot-based analysis is in line with recent work on tonal accent that calls into question the claim that all tonal contrasts within syllables must be due to the presence of lexical tone. In addition, our analysis addresses issues surrounding the phonology of compounds in general, and prosodic effects of compounding in particular

Restricting the Power of Cophonologies: A Representational Solution to Stem Allomorphy in Uspanteko

In Uspanteko, a Mayan language spoken in Guatemala, certain possessive prefixes lead to variation in stress and pitch accent and can sometimes trigger vowel length alternations or consonant deletion in roots. We argue that this complex pattern of stem allomorphy can be successfully analyzed within a morpheme-based model of morphology given two assumptions: i. underlying representations can contain metrical templates (e.g. Saba Kirchner 2013, Iosad 2016, Köhnlein 2016, 2019 for recent proposals); ii. pitch-accent contrasts in Uspanteko are a surface exponent of a difference between trochaic (falling tone) and iambic feet (level tone), as proposed in Köhnlein (2019). We claim that our analysis is more restrictive than an earlier account by Bennett & Henderson (2013; henceforth B&H), who divide relevant items into several nominal cophonologies. In analyzing non-concatenative exponence as an epiphenomenon of metrical affixation, our approach is in line with principles of Generalized Non-Linear Affixation (e.g. Bermúdez-Otero 2012, Trommer & Zimmermann 2014)

Prosodic structure and suprasegmental features:Short-vowel stød in Danish

This paper presents a phonological analysis of a glottalization phenomenon in dialects of Danish known as ‘short-vowel stød’. It is argued that both short-vowel stød and common Danish stød involve the attachment of a laryngeal feature to a prosodic node—specifically the mora. In the case of short-vowel stød that mora lacks segmental content, as it is projected top-down due to local prosodic requirements, not bottom-up by segmental material. I show that this device provides an account of the distribution of short-vowel stød as arising from the interplay of constraints on metrical structure (both lexically stored and computed by the grammar) and the requirement for morae to be featurally licensed. The analysis provides further evidence for the analysis of ‘tonal accents’ and related phenomena in terms of metrical structure rather than lexical tone or laryngeal features, and contributes to our understanding of the relationship between segmental and suprasegmental phonology in Germanic languages

Variation in Mainland Scandinavian Object Shift : A Prosodic Analysis

Despite a decade-long research history, there are still ongoing debates on the analysis of Object Shift in Mainland Scandinavian, and all syntactic and information-structural accounts have run into empirical and/or conceptual problems. We argue that this debate can be resolved by recognizing that OS is, in fact, a prosodic phenomenon. Our analysis builds on the observatioDespite a decade-long research history, there are still ongoing debates on the analysis of Object Shift in Mainland Scandinavian, and all syntactic and information-structural accounts n that varieties with optional OS (most Swedish dialects, southern Danish dialects (e.g. Ærø)) also have a tone accent contrast. The insitu word order in these varieties is licensed because tonal accent creates a prosodic domain that makes the incorporation of weak pronouns possible