On ternary feet

Halle and Vergnaud (1987, henceforth H & V) claim that the only permitted ternary foot in narural language is amphibrach (wsw) as in (1a) but not dactyl (sww) or anapest (wws) as in (1b and c): ..

Syllable Weakening in Kagoshima Japanese An Element-Based Analysis

This paper examines syllable weakening or nisshōka (入声化) in Kagoshima Japanese (KJ), where high vowel apocope feeds lenition, leading to correspondences such as Tōkyō Japanese (TJ) [kaki] ‘persimmon’ and Kagoshima [kaʔ]. The traditional pattern noted in the literature is quite clear. Apocope elides stem-final /u/ or /i/. The preceding onset is lenited in one of four ways: 1) stops and affricates are debuccalised (/kaki/ > [kaʔ] ‘persimmon’); 2) fricatives undergo voicing neutralisation (TJ [kazu] > KJ [kas] ‘number’); 3) nasals undergo place loss (TJ [kami] > KJ [kaɴ] ‘paper’); 4) rhotics undergo gliding (TJ [maru] > [maj] ‘round’). This paper presents an initial analysis of the data within Element Theory representational framework

Rime length, stress, and association domains

Every regular Chinese syllable has a syllable tone (the tone we get when the syllable is read in isolation). In some Chinese languages, the tonal pattern of a multisyllabic expression is basically a concatenation of the syllable tones. In other Chinese languages, the tonal pattern of a multisyllabic expression is determined solely by the initial syllable. I call the former M -languages (represented by Mandarin) and the latter S -languages (represented by Shanghai). I argue that there is an additional difference in rime structures between the two language groups. In S-languages, all rimes are simple, i.e., there are no underlying diphthongs or codas. In M-languages, all regular rimes are heavy. I further argue that a syllable keeps its underlying tones only if it has stress. Independent metrical evidence tells us that heavy rimes may carry inherent stress. Thus, in M-languages, all regular syllables are stressed and retain their underlying tones (which may or may not undergo further changes). In contrast, in S-languages, regular rimes do not carry inherent stress; instead, only those syllables that are assigned stress by rule can keep their underlying tones and hence head a multisyllabic tonal domain.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42998/1/10831_2005_Article_BF01440582.pd