The uniqueness of metrical structure: rhythmic phonotactics in Huariapano

Abstract

This article argues that, contrary to some recent proposals, a given phonological form may be organised into at most one array of metrical structure at a time. The bulk of the paper is dedicated to a case study of Huariapano, a language that has been claimed to motivate multiple, coexisting but autonomous, layers of metrical parsing. I show that this conclusion is premature : both stress and segmental patterning in Huariapano can be modelled within a single system of constituency, once context-dependent variation in foot form is taken into account. The reanalysis developed here also draws on the idea that foot-initial syllables may be targeted by augmentation or fortition processes even when unstressed. Independent evidence for foot-initial strengthening is furnished by segmental phonotactics in a range of other languages.

The internally layered foot in Dutch

“…On the other hand, unstressed syllables in other (non-foot-initial) metrical positions (i.e., σ 2 in (41)- (42)) seem to optionally allow /h/-deletion. These generalizations together tentatively confirm the foot-initial hypothesis of Bennett (2012Bennett ( , 2013 by which foot-initial weak syllables can be slightly stronger than other unstressed syllables, given the greater relative strength associated to prosodic-category-initial positions. In Dutch, as in English, the feature [spread glottis] surfaces foot-initially as a means of strengthening a privileged position.…”

“…This idea was already present in the analysis of several phonological distributions in other languages (see Kiparsky 1979;Withgott 1982;Jensen 2000;Davis and Cho 2003;Davis 2005;Harris 2013 on English;and Leer 1985;Rice 1992 on Chugach Alutiiq). It has been significantly reinforced in recent work by Bennett (2012Bennett ( , 2013, who demonstrated that even in iambic languages, foot-initial weak syllables (e.g., (σ ˈσ)) may undergo strengthening effects due to the greater relative prominence associated with prosodic-initial domains.…”

“…('dɪst)) 'Almohadist') behave similarly: They both retain /h/ and, thus, they can be considered to be slightly stronger than other unstressed syllables. However, there are also languages like Huariapano (Bennett 2013), where only the initial position of maximal feet target strengthening effects. In this language, only the initial position of the maximal foot undergoes epenthesis of [h] in the coda, which leads to forms like (σh (σσ)) and (σh σ) with [h] epenthesis in the initial syllable but not *(σh (σh σ)) with insertion in the first and second syllable in the IL foot (Bennett 2013: 377).…”

“…In this representation, unstressed syllables are all in foot-dependent positions but some of them are stronger than others given their particular location within a foot. More specifically, following Bennett (2012Bennett ( , 2013, we will argue that the foot-initial domain is a privileged position in prosody (e.g., σ 3 in 7), which can either be protected from undergoing weakening processes such as VR, or it can be the target of strengthening effects. Here we will demonstrate that this type of IL foot accounts not only for the dual behaviour of unstressed syllables in VR, but also for the distribution of some consonants in Dutch.…”

“…In particular, it has been proposed that, under certain circumstances, a weak syllable may be adjoined to a binary foot, giving rise to a minimally recursive foot; in these structures, a foot dominates another foot (Davis 1999(Davis , 2005Jensen 2000;Davis and Cho 2003;Yu 2004;Bennett 2012Bennett , 2013Kager 2012;Martínez-Paricio 2012Martínez-Paricio and Kager 2015;Buckley 2014;Breteler 2015). For instance, in Martínez-Paricio (2013) and Martínez-Paricio and Kager (2015) metrical model, feet are maximally trisyllabic, consisting of a disyllabic foot and an adjoined weak syllable (2a).…”