No Stress System Requires Recursive Feet

A recursive foot is one in which a foot is embedded inside another foot of the same type: e.g., iambic (iaσ(iaσσ́)) or trochaic (tr(trσ́σ)σ). Recent work has used such feet to model stress systems with full or partial ternary rhythm, in which stress falls on every third syllable or mora. I show here that no stress system requires recursive feet, that phonological processes in such languages likely don't either, and that the notion of recursive foot is theoretically suspect.Un peu mètric recursiu és aquell que està incrustat dins d'un altre peu del mateix tipus: p. ex., un peu recursiu iàmbic (iaσ(iaσσ́)) o un peu recursiu trocaic (tr(trσ́σ)σ). Alguns treballs recents han fet servir aquest tipus de peu per modelar sistemes accentuals amb ritme ternari total o parcial, en què l'accent recau sobre cada tercera síl·laba o mora. En aquest article mostro que cap sistema accentual requereix peus recursius, que els processos fonològics d'aquestes suposades llengües no hi fan referència, i que la noció de peu recursiu és sospitosa des d'un punt de vista teòric

Ancient Greek Pitch Accent, Not Stress*

Ancient Greek accent involves both stress and tone (Allen 1973, Steriade 1988). We present here a new piece of evidence for the details of the tonal part, based on a lowering process whereby a H tone on the final TBU of a word lowers if the word is followed by another tonic word: H...H → L...H. This is essentially what is reported for Rimi, a Tanzanian Bantu language, where HH loses the first of its H tones (Olson 1964, ‘Anti-Meeussen’s Rule’). If correct, this motivates three tonal classes in Ancient Greek: HL* in words like basiléˈàà ‘king.acc’ (Sauzet 1989, Golston 1990) and two additional classes, H*L in basiˈléù ‘king.voc’ and H in basiˈleús ‘king.nom’.

Diphthongs are micro-feet: Prominence and sonority in the nucleus

In this paper we look at prominence in diphthongs and argue that diphthongs are structured in the same way metrical feet are. We propose a set of OT constraints that generates a typology of micro-feet. These are either iambic or trochaic or they are quality/sonority-sensitive with default to iamb or trochee in case of sonority plateaus (i.e., úi and íu). Crucially, we did not find any language with quantity-sensitive micro-feet. This gap is explained by the assumption that diphthongs are maximally bimoraic and that length in diphthongs is phonologically represented as mora sharing. For a quantity-sensitivity constraint targeting pairs of moras the two vowels in a diphthong are thus indistinguishable and prominence determination is left to sonority or foot form constraints which locate the prominence at an edge of the foot

Clitics in Homeric Greek: Less Evidence that PIE was Head-Final

Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1989), pp. 346-35

The Evolution of Hierarchical Structure in Language

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Phonological Movement in Ukrainian

Extant accounts of scrambling in Ukrainian generally don't extend past object- and other NP-related processes (Féry et al. 2007, Mykhaylyk 2010). Analysis of Slavic scrambling as XP movement (Corver 1992, Bošković 2005) runs into problems with split constituency, as does OT syntax (Gouskova 2001). Remnant movement (Sekerina 1997, Bašić 2004) runs afoul of Slavic data and theory too (Pereltsvaig 2008, Kariaeva 2009). Analyses that mix syntax with prosody (Antonyuk-Yudina & Mykhaylyk 2013; Mykhaylyk 2012) are more promising but also fail. Ukrainian scrambles only prosodic entities, ignores core principles of syntax, and respects core principles of phonology. The driving force behind the scrambling is not our focus here. It is generally assumed to be pragmatic in nature, based on things like topic, focus, and givenness (e.g., Féry et al. 2007). Fanselow & Lenertová have recently argued against this, however, and claim for most scrambling that – accentuation rather than informational status determines which categories can be fronted – (2012:169); their findings support Chomsky's (2008) view that information structure does not result in movement. We leave this to future research and focus here on which part of the grammar the movement takes place in. We propose that Ukrainian scrambling is phonological movement of exactly the sort found in Ancient Greek and Latin (Agbayani & Golston 2010, 2016), and similar to the more limited type found in Japanese (Agbayani, Golston & Ishii 2015) and Irish (Bennett, Elfner, & McCloskey 2016)

Phi-Features in Animal Cognition

This paper argues that the core phi-features behind grammatical person, number, and gender are widely used in animal cognition and are in no way limited to humans or to communication. Based on this, it is hypothesized (i) that the semantics behind phi-features were fixed long before primates evolved, (ii) that most go back as far as far as vertebrates, and (iii) that some are shared with insects and plants