Chapter 1: Introduction and Background

CONSTRAINTS ON PATTERNS OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY STRESS Laura W. McGarrity Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Linguistics Indiana University August 2003 Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ____________________________________ Daniel A. Dinnsen, Ph.D., Chair ____________________________________ Stuart Davis, Ph.D. ____________________________________ Kenneth de Jong, Ph.D. August 27, 2003 ____________________________________ Judith A. Gierut, Ph.D. ii © 2003 Laura Wilbur McGarrity ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I owe a great deal of thanks to the members of my committee, without whose guidance and support this dissertation could never have been written: Dan Dinnsen, Stuart Davis, Ken de Jong, and Judith Gierut. I am particularly indebted to my chair, advisor, and mentor, Dan Dinnsen. He has always been a constant source of support, encouragement, and inspiration to me; it is solely because of him that I became a phonologist. His willingness to listen and discuss every idea that went into this dissertation has been absolutely invaluable to me. I am truly fortunate to have had the honor of working with him. I would also like to thank the other Linguistics faculty members at Indiana University, particularly Bob Botne. Though not a member of my committee (or even a phonologist!), he has always shown an interest in my scholarship, which I greatly appreciate. Thanks are also due to my friends and colleagues at Indiana University: Masa Deguchi, Caitlin Dillon, Marilyn Estep, Ashley Farris, B.J. Lim, Kathleen O’Connor, Kim Swanson, Kathryn Tippetts, and Kelly Trennepohl. They have all contributed to my development at IU in some way and I am grateful for their friendship. I would especially like to thank Karen Baertsch, who was always willing to drop everything to discuss my latest conundrum, phonological or otherwise. This dissertation has benefited from the feedback and suggestions provided by the audiences at TLS-SWOT, NAPhC2, Vienna, and MCWOP. I am also grateful for the funding provided by the IU College of Arts and Sciences during the past year of writing the dissertation, as well as by grants from the National Institutes of Health DC00012, iv DC01694 to Indiana University. Special thanks go to David Pisoni for fostering a stimulating interdisciplinary environment in his lab meetings. Finally, I would like to thank my family for supporting me, believing in me, inspiring me, and for listening patiently each time I explain (once again) what it is I do. I would especially like to thank my husband Matt, who has always been there to lend me his strength when I felt I had little left. To him, I am eternally grateful. This work is dedicated to him. v Laura W. McGarrity CONSTRAINTS ON PATTERNS OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY STRESS This dissertation examines the interaction of various phonological phenomena with stress assignment. In some languages primary and secondary stresses behave identically or symmetrically with respect to a particular process. However, in other languages, only primary stress undergoes the process while secondary stress does not. In these languages, stress assignment is said to be asymmetrical. The goals of this study are two-fold. The first is empirical in nature. A cross- linguistic comparison reveals a typology of languages that exhibit symmetrical and asymmetrical stress patterns. Special emphasis is placed on those languages that demonstrate asymmetries in the behavior of primary and secondary stresses with respect to a wide variety of different phonological phenomena. The second goal is theoretical, analyzing these languages within the constraint- based framework of Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993/2002). It is shown that asymmetrical stress patterns can be accounted for by referring to constraints that are specific to primary stress. A crucial assumption of this proposal is that constraints may not refer exclusively to secondary stress. Ranking a primary-stress-specific constraint in a stringency relation above a general stress constraint, with an antagonistic constraint ranked intermediately between them, yields an asymmetrical pattern. Due to the nature of the stringency relation – in which violation of the specific constraint implies violation of the general constraint, but not vice versa – there is no ranking of these constraints that will yield a pattern in which a phonological process applies only in secondary stressed vi syllables. This is a desirable consequence, since, with respect to certain phonological processes – including nonfinality effects, stressed syllable lengthening, and stress-driven sonority – such patterns are unattested. However, with respect to other phonological processes – e.g., quantity-sensitivity and sonority-driven stress – this type of asymmetrical pattern is attested. It is proposed that the difference between those processes that can apply only in secondary stressed syllables and those that cannot rests in whether stress assignment is process-driven or whether the process is stress-driven. This fundamental dichotomy predicts when such an asymmetrical pattern will be attested and when it will not. ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ vii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND 1.1 Introduction................................................................................................................... 1 1.1.1 Goals ...................................................................................................................... 4 1.1.2 The proposal........................................................................................................... 5 1.1.3 Outline of the chapter............................................................................................. 7 1.2 Rule-based approaches to stress assignment................................................................. 8 1.2.1 Bottom-up stress assignment ................................................................................. 9 1.2.2 Top-down stress assignment................................................................................ 12 1.2.3 Asymmetries of primary and secondary stress .................................................... 15 1.3 Stress in Optimality Theory........................................................................................ 19 1.3.1 Overview.............................................................................................................. 19 1.3.2 Stress constraints.................................................................................................. 21 1.3.3 Factorial typology ................................................................................................ 27 1.3.3.1 Stressed vowel lengthening........................................................................... 28 1.3.3.2 Typological patterns of stressed vowel lengthening..................................... 31 1.3.3.3 Implicational universals and stringency........................................................ 36 1.4 Stressed syllables as strong positions ......................................................................... 39 1.4.1 Positional faithfulness and positional markedness .............................................. 39 1.4.2 Strong positions vs. weak positions in constraint formulation ............................ 43 1.4.3 Primary stress as strongest of the strong.............................................................. 44 1.5 Outline of the thesis .................................................................................................... 46 viii CHAPTER 2: NONFINALITY 2.1 Introduction................................................................................................................. 52 2.2 General nonfinality effects.......................................................................................... 55 2.2.1 Avoidance of final stress in trochaic languages................................................... 55 2.2.2 Final stress in iambic languages: Araucanian...................................................... 59 2.2.3 Avoidance of final stress in iambic languages: Southern Paiute ......................... 61 2.3 Asymmetrical nonfinality effects................................................................................ 67 2.3.1 Paumari ................................................................................................................ 67 2.3.1.1 The data......................................................................................................... 70 2.3.1.2 Foot extrametricality..................................................................................... 71 2.3.1.3 An OT account: Everett (2002)..................................................................... 75 2.3.1.4 An alternative OT account using NONFINALITY........................................... 77 2.3.2 Khalkha Mongolian ............................................................................................. 82 2.3.3 Unifying the Paumari and Khalkha patterns........................................................ 89 2.4 Unattested nonfinality pattern....................................................................................

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