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Clash, Lapse and Directionality

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Abstract

Directionality effects in the parsing of rhythmical secondary stress are analyzed in this paper as the result of two conflicting types of constraints. A dominant alignment constraint ALLFTL, requiring feet to be aligned as much as possible to the left edge of the prosodic word, is responsible for the generation of metrical structures where feet are left-aligned. Right-alignment, on the other hand, is not the result of an alignment constraint, but the consequence of the rhythmical constraints *CLASH and *LAPSE demanding alternating rhythm. This approach to directionality makes the right typological predictions excluding from the set of possible metrical structures right-aligning iambic systems, which are not attested among the world’s languages. The interaction between the constraints determining rhythmical secondary stress and the constraints determining main stress placement is discussed and it is shown how one more typological observation, the non-existence of initial dactyl systems, is predicted by the system.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Università di Trento, via S. Croce 65, I-38100, Trento, Italy

    Birgit Alber

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  1. Birgit Alber
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Correspondence to Birgit Alber.

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This paper has profited from the comments by three anonymous reviewers, the editor Michael Kenstowicz and audiences at the International Conference on Stress and Rhythm, Hyderabad, GLOW 24 and WCCFL XX. It has also much benefited from discussions with colleagues at Rutgers University and at the universities of Marburg, Siegen and Auckland. Thanks to Rob Goedemans for helping me gain access to the Stresstyp database. Special thanks go to Alan Prince and René Kager for discussions on stress in general and to Sabine Lappe, Christian Uffmann and Roberto Zamparelli for carefully reading the written version.

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Alber, B. Clash, Lapse and Directionality. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 23, 485–542 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-004-0482-1

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