Onsets contribute to syllable weight: Statistical evidence from stress and meter

Abstract

While some accounts of syllable weight deny a role for onsets, onset-sensitive weight criteria have received renewed attention in recent years (e.g. Gordon 2005, Topintzi 2010). This article presents new evidence supporting onsets as factors in weight. First, in complex stress systems such as those of English and Russian, onset length is a significant attractor of stress both in the lexicon and in nonce probes. This effect is highly systematic and unlikely, it is argued, to be driven by analogy alone. Second, in flexible quantitative meters (e.g. in Sanskrit), poets preferentially align longer onsets with heavier metrical positions, all else being equal. A theory of syllable weight is proposed in which the domain of weight begins not with the rime but with the p-center (perceptual center) of the syllable, which is perturbed by properties of the onset. While onset effects are apparently universal in gradient weight systems, they are weak enough to be usually eclipsed by the structure of the rime under categorization. This proposal therefore motivates both the existence of onset weight effects and the subordination of the onset to the rime with respect to weight.*

What is the domain for weight computation: the syllable or the interval?

“…He showed that, across the English lexicon, there is a positive correlation between the number of initial consonants in a bi-vocalic word and the likelihood that the word is initially stressed: initial stress is more likely with CCC initially (stratum) than with CC initially (blossom) than with C initially (canal) than with no consonant initially (abyss). Ryan (2013) found the same effect experimentally, and in the Russian lexicon.…”

Phonological weight

“…As mentioned in Section 1.7, their behavior in end‐weight mirrors the typology of onset weight in other systems. For example, voiceless onsets pattern as heavier than voiced ones in end‐weight, agreeing with the stress typology (e.g., Pirahã above) and meter (Ryan, , p. 326).…”

“…This trend was established for both the lexicon (controlling for various possible confounds) as well as for pseudowords (under several experimental designs, both visual and auditory), confirming its generality and productivity. Ryan () further argues that the trend is subsegmental, such that (longer) voiceless onsets are more stress‐attracting than (shorter) voiced onsets in English, just as in Pirahã. Onset size also correlates with stress in Russian (Ryan, ), Italian (Hayes, ), and Portuguese (Garcia, to appear).…”

“…Ryan () further argues that the trend is subsegmental, such that (longer) voiceless onsets are more stress‐attracting than (shorter) voiced onsets in English, just as in Pirahã. Onset size also correlates with stress in Russian (Ryan, ), Italian (Hayes, ), and Portuguese (Garcia, to appear). Garcia, shows that as the number of word‐initial consonants increases, the propensity for initial stress significantly increases with it.…”

Syllable weight and duration: A rhyme/intervals comparison

“…The first is of the sort presented in Ryan (2014) and Garcia (2017) where corpora are examined and a correlation has been found between the number of segments in an interval and its weight behavior. The second is of the sort discussed in Hirsch (2014) where a production experiment shows the stress-drawing effect of larger intervals.…”