Schwa, Syllables, and Extrametricality in Dutch

Abstract

Most theories of modern phonology now seem to recognize that words consist of concatenations of syllables, as in (1), where each separate syllable conforms to the syllable restrictions of the language, be they linear, hierarchical, filterlike, template-like, or what have you. Furthermore, some models, such as the metrical phonology model adopted here, allow for larger possibilities at the left and right word-edges in the form of extrasyllabic elements, such as the final dentals of Herbst 'autumn' in German (Halle and Vergnaud 1980:95, after Haugen 1956). Schematically:(1) [ex] a a a [ex] Thus, words are concatenations of "possible syllables", while extrasyllabic elements are subject to the probably universal condition that they appear at the edges of relevant domains; see also Harris (1983) on the Spanish syllable and similar work by Hayes (1982) on English stress. Taking this concatenative view of syllable structure as our point of departure, we discuss in this paper a body of data from Dutch, which concern the situation depicted in (2). We will discuss the syllabic and metrical possibilities, including sonority and stress, of the right-hand word-edge containing and preceding schwa:The behavior of schwa in Dutch is the subject of a lively debate in phonological analyses of the language, and our specific purpose here will be to show how the various aspects of its behavior can be correlated within the metrical syllabic and accentual framework.

The morphological structure of complex place names: the case of Dutch

“…Furthermore, note that, if morphologically simplex, at least the inhabitant names would incur additional predictable violations of 3σ . A similar observation can be made with respect to another strong generalization on stress assignment: in monomorphemic words, syllables with a schwa usually directly follow a stressed syllable (Van der Hulst 1984;Kager and Zonneveld 1986;Van Oostendorp 1995 l, where the schwa syllable would be preceded by an unstressed syllable. Again, the counterexamples are usually place names, such as the ones in (4).…”

A comparison of lexeme and speech syllables in Dutch

“…There are, 1. Schwa (/ә/), although phonetically short, patterns phonologically with the long vowels in Dutch (Booij, I995; Kager, 1989;Kager & Zonneveld, 1986;Trom melen, 1984).…”

The internally layered foot in Dutch

“…Even if underlying /h/ were postulated here (e.g., by Richness of the Base), the obligatoriness of /h/-deletion would follow from an absolute phonological gap in Dutch: /h/ is banned before schwa (Kager and Zonneveld 1986;Kager 1989;van Oostendorp 1995). 13 A few disyllabic words occur in which /h/ deletion seems to be blocked despite matching the metrical structure for deletion.…”

“…In order to represent pre-antepenultimate stress while using only licit 6 The single exception to exhaustive metrification are words ending in a schwa in hiatus, e.g., 'weduwe 'widow' (Kager and Zonneveld 1986;Kager 1989), which we assume to be metrified as follows: [('ʋe.dy).ə]. 7 This constraint functions to place the primary stress on a branching foot in final position, and to retract the primary stress onto the prefinal foot in case the final foot is not branching.…”