Latin Syllable Structure in Typological Perspective
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Meter of Classical Arabic Poetry
Pegs, Cords, and Ghuls: Meter of Classical Arabic Poetry Hazel Scott Haverford College Department of Linguistics, Swarthmore College Fall 2009 There are many reasons to read poetry, filled with heroics and folly, sweeping metaphors and engaging rhymes. It can reveal much about a shared cultural history and the depths of the human soul; for linguists, it also provides insights into the nature of language itself. As a particular subset of a language, poetry is one case study for understanding the use of a language and the underlying rules that govern it. This paper explores the metrical system of classical Arabic poetry and its theoretical representations. The prevailing classification is from the 8th century C.E., based on the work of the scholar al-Khaliil, and I evaluate modern attempts to situate the meters within a more universal theory. I analyze the meter of two early Arabic poems, and observe the descriptive accuracy of al-Khaliil’s system, and then provide an analysis of the major alternative accounts. By incorporating linguistic concepts such as binarity and prosodic constraints, the newer models improve on the general accessibility of their theories with greater explanatory potential. The use of this analysis to identify and account for the four most commonly used meters, for example, highlights the significance of these models over al-Khaliil’s basic enumerations. The study is situated within a discussion of cultural history and the modern application of these meters, and a reflection on the oral nature of these poems. The opportunities created for easier cross-linguistic comparisons are crucial for a broader understanding of poetry, enhanced by Arabic’s complex levels of metrical patterns, and with conclusions that can inform wider linguistic study.* Introduction Classical Arabic poetry is traditionally characterized by its use of one of the sixteen * I would like to thank my advisor, Professor K. -
Exceptional Stress and Reduced Vowels in Munster Irish Anton Kukhto
Exceptional stress and reduced vowels in Munster Irish Anton Kukhto Massachusetts Institute of Technology [email protected] ABSTRACT 1.2. Exceptions to the basic pattern This paper focuses on reduced vowels in one of the Munster dialects of Modern Irish, Gaeilge Chorca There exist, however, numerous exceptions to this Dhuibhne. In this dialect, lexical stress depends on rule. Some are caused by the morphological structure syllable weight: heavy syllables (i.e. syllables that of the word. Thus, some verbal inflection morphemes contain phonologically long vowels) attract stress; if exceptionally attract lexical stress, e.g. fógróidh (sé) [foːgǝˈroːgj] ‘(he) will announce’, while others fail to there are none, stress is initial. There exist exceptions, j j one of them being peninitial stress in words with no do so contrary, e.g. molaimíd [ˈmoləm iːd ] ‘we heavy syllables and the string /ax/ in the second praise’; for more details on such cases, see [21]. Other syllable. Instead of deriving this pattern from the exceptions are lexical in the sense that the stress is properties of /x/ in combination with /a/ as has been unpredictable and does not obey the general laws done in much previous work, the paper argues for the outlined above. These are often found to exhibit presence of a phonologically reduced vowel in the anomalous behaviour in other Irish dialects as well, first syllable. The paper argues that such vowels are not only in the South, cf. tobac [tǝˈbak] ‘tobacco’ or phonetically and phonologically different from bricfeasta [brʲikˈfʲastǝ] ‘breakfast’. underlying full vowels that underwent a post-lexical Another class of exceptions seems to stem from process of vowel reduction. -
Chapter 1 Theoretical Issues
Chapter 1 Theoretical issues —… no language has a rule stressing the penultimate syllable unless it begins with a voiced consonant, in which case one stresses the antepenultimate syllable“ (Hyman 1985: 96) —(Karo) stress can be predicted by the onset of the last syllable: if it is a voiced stop consonant, then the stress shifts one syllable to the left“ (Gabas 1999: 39) 1.1 Syllable weight The notion of syllable weight is pervasive in phonology. Everywhere we look there are data that make reference to it. The idea behind syllable weight is that depending on their structure, syllables are treated in a different way; thus if a syllable contains a long vowel or - in some languages - a short vowel followed by a coda consonant, then it is heavier than one including a short vowel, i.e. VV, VC > V. The effects of this distinction are most prominently seen in stress, where in many languages heavy syllables attract stress more than light ones. Importantly, VC is heavy in some languages, e.g. Hopi, but light in others, e.g. Lenakel (see below). In Hopi (Gussenhoven and Jacobs 2005: 145), the first syllable is stressed if it is heavy (C)VV or (C)VC [(1a)], but if it is (C)V light, then the second gets stress [(1b)]1. (1) Hopi: VV/VC=heavy; V=light a. q1q .t1.som.pi ‘headbands’ soÂ9.ja ‘planting stick’ b. q1.t1. som.pi ‘headband’ ko.jo. Mo ‘turkey’ 1 In this chapter, unless stated otherwise, the acute accent marks primary stress, the grave accent means secondary stress, and underlining denotes the reduplicated portion. -
Audible Punctuation Performative Pause In
PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/140838 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-09-25 and may be subject to change. AUDIBLE PUNCTUATION Performative Pause in Homeric Prosody Audible Punctuation: Performative Pause in Homeric Prosody Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. dr. Th.L.M. Engelen, volgens besluit van het college van decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 21 mei 2015 om 14.30 uur precies door Ronald Blankenborg geboren op 23 maart 1971 te Eibergen Promotoren: Prof. dr. A.P.M.H. Lardinois Prof. dr. J.B. Lidov (City University New York, Verenigde Staten) Manuscriptcommissie: Prof. dr. M.G.M. van der Poel Prof. dr. E.J. Bakker (Yale University, Verenigde Staten) Prof. dr. M. Janse (Universiteit Gent, België) Copyright©Ronald Blankenborg 2015 ISBN 978-90-823119-1-4 [email protected] [email protected] All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. Printed by Maarse Printing Cover by Gijs de Reus Audible Punctuation: Performative Pause in Homeric Prosody Doctoral Thesis to obtain the degree of doctor from Radboud University Nijmegen on the authority of the Rector Magnificus prof. -
ELEGY 397 ( ); K. Strecker, “Leoninische Hexameter Und
ELEGY 397 (); K. Strecker, “Leoninische Hexameter und speare, Two Gentlemen of Verona) can be recommended Pentameter in . Jahrhundert,” Neues Archiv für ältere to a would-be seducer. T is composite understanding deutsche Geschichtskunde (); C. M. Bowra, Early of the genre, however, is never fully worked out and Greek Elegists, d ed. (); P. F r i e d l ä n d e r , Epigram- gradually fades. mata: Greek Inscriptions in Verse from the Beginnings to T e most important cl. models for the later devel. of the Persian Wars ( ); M. Platnauer, Latin Elegiac Verse elegy are *pastoral: the lament for Daphnis (who died (); L. P. Wilkinson, Golden Latin Artistry ( ); of love) by T eocritus, the elegy for Adonis attributed T. G. Rosenmeyer, “Elegiac and Elegos,” California to Bion, the elegy on Bion attributed to Moschus, and Studies in Classical Antiquity (); D. Ross, Style another lament for Daphnis in the fi fth *eclogue of and Tradition in Catullus ( ); M. L. West, Studies in Virgil. All are stylized and mythic, with hints of ritual; Greek Elegy and Iambus ( ); A.W.H. Adkins, Poetic the fi rst three are punctuated by incantatory *refrains. Craft in the Early Greek Elegists ( ); R. M. Marina T e elegies on Daphnis are staged performances within Sáez, La métrica de los epigramas de Marcial (). an otherwise casual setting. Nonhuman elements of the T.V.F. BROGAN; A. T. COLE pastoral world are enlisted in the mourning: nymphs, satyrs, the landscape itself. In Virgil, the song of grief is E L E G I A C S T A N Z A , elegiac quatrain, heroic qua- paired with one celebrating the dead man’s apotheosis; train. -
Syllable and Segment in Latin 1
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/2/2015, SPi Syllable and Segment in Latin RANJAN SEN Preview - Copyrighted Material 1 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/2/2015, SPi 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries # Ranjan Sen 2015 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2015 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2014943829 ISBN 978–0–19–966018–6 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, cr04yy Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. -
Morpho-Phonology and the Greek Glides
Morpho-phonology and the Greek glides In the Greek phonological literature there have been many attempts to uncover the factors regulating hiatus (i.e. vocalic sequences) and synizesis (i.e. glide formation) in Modern Greek (Kazazis 1968, Warburton 1976, Setatos 1974, Nyman 1981, Deligiorgis 1987, Malikouti-Drachman & Drachman 1990). There is a cross-linguistic tendency to avoid hiatus, as shown for example in Casali (1997), but in Modern Greek, hiatus is avoided only in some cases. These two processes, hiatus and synizesis, are seen as two opposing forces in Greek phonology yielding either words with vocalic sequences such as [io] ~ [iu], [ia] in (2) or words where a vowel turns into a glide to avoid hiatus as in [i] ~ [ju], [ja] in (1). Synizesis is also compounded by strengthening or hardening in some cases (1a-d) resulting in the fricativization of the glides. While both classes of words in (1) and (2) involve neuter nouns, it is only the former class that involves [i]~[j] alternations between the nominative singular form and the rest. The data below thus give us two types of contrast: i) an [i]~[j] alternation between the nominative singular and the rest in (1) and ii) a [j]~[i] contrast between the genitive and plural forms of (1) versus those of (2). In the latter class hiatus is tolerated. NOM. SING GEN. SING NOM. PLURAL GLOSS (1) a. po. ði po. ðʝú po. ðʝa foot b. ðo.ka.ri ðo.ka.rʝú ðo.ka.rʝa girder c. ko.lo.ci.θi ko.lo.ci.θç ú ko.lo.ci.θça pumpkin d. -
Quantitative Metathesis in Ancient Greek
Quantitative Metathesis in Ancient Greek Anita Brown Bryn Mawr College December 2017 Abstract This paper explores the phenomenon known as 'quantitative metathesis' in Ancient Greek. Historically this change, an apparent metathesis of vowel length, has been considered to be true metathesis by classicists, but recent scholarship has cast suspicion on this notion, not least because metathesis of vowel length is not a known change in any other language. In this paper, I present a review of previous scholarship on Greek quantitative metathesis, in addition to a cross-linguistic survey of general metathesis, with special attention to autosegmental theory. I conclude that Greek quantitative metathesis is not true metathesis, but rather a retention and reassociation of abstract timing units through the two individual (and well-attested) processes of antevocalic shortening and compensatory lengthening. 1 Contents 1 Introduction 3 1.1 Introduction to Ancient Greek 5 1.2 Introduction to Quantitative Metathesis 6 1.2.1 A-stem 6 1.2.2 Athematic stems 7 1.3 Introduction to Autosegmental Phonology 8 2 Greek meter and accent 9 2.1 Meter 9 2.2 Accent 11 3 Overview of metathesis 12 3.1 CV metathesis in Rotuman 13 3.1.1 As deletion and reattachment (Besnier 1987) 13 3.1.2 As compensatory metathesis (Blevins & Garrett 1998) 13 3.2 CV metathesis in Kwara'ae ............... 14 3.3 Compensatory lengthening from CV metathesis in Leti . 15 3.4 VV metathesis .. 16 3.5 Syllabic metathesis 17 4 Analyses of quantitative metathesis 18 4.1 QM as timing-slot transfer ..... 18 4.2 QM as CL/preservation of quantity. -
Syllable Weight: Phonetic Duration and Phonemic Contrast*
Syllable Weight: Phonetic Duration and Phonemic Contrast* Mee-Jin Ahn CKyung Hee University) Ahn, Mee-Jin. (2003). Syllable weight: phonetic duration and phonemic contrast. Language Research 39(2), 355-381. This paper addresses two questions: why, in quantity-sensitive systems, do evv and eve syllables constitute better stress targets than ev syllables, and why does the weight of eve syllables vary? I argue that evv syllables are optimal stress targets because their long vowel duration allows for the best expression of the phonetic correlates of stress. Although eve syllables appear to attract stress in some languages, this attraction should be understood as a consequence of stress repulsion from ev syllables. The stress attraction of eve syllables occurs only where ev syllabYes are subject to positional vowel lengthening and stress-induced lengthenfng. In this position, ev syllables repel stress to preserve the phonemic contrast of vowel length. eve syllables are protected from extreme vowel lengthening in the same positions due to closed syllable shortening. I present exper imental evidence from Jordanian Arabic where only evv and eve sylla bles attract stress in penultimate position, to support my claim that \'owel lengthening effects in penultimate ev syllables are extreme. As' a result, ev syllables avoid stress to maintain their phonemic vowel length and eve and evv syllables receive stress in the target position. I conclude that eve syllables are not inherent stress attractors at all. Key words: syllable weight, phonetic vowel duration, phonemic vowel length contrast, Jordanian Arabic 1. Introduction The position of stress is sensitive to the distinction between heavy and light syllables in many languages. -
The Value of Irish Schwa: an Acoustic Analysis of Epenthetic Vowels
The value of Irish schwa: An acoustic analysis of epenthetic vowels Kerry McCullough∗ Department of Linguistics University of Kansas; Lawrence, KS, USA This study was conducted in an effort to learn more about the phonology of the Irish language. The research is intended to be a phonetic analysis of one of the phonological processes characteristic to Celtic languages. The present study examines the extent to which schwa epenthesis in Irish acts as a neutral- ization process. A list of 30 Irish words acting as near-minimal pairs was compiled for this study. Vowel environment and syllable count matched across pairs, and only the vowel itself differed in whether it was epenthetic or underlying. Six native-Irish speakers were recruited for this experiment representing all three major dialects of the language: three speakers from Cork (Munster), two speakers from Donegal (Ulster), one speaker from Connemara (Connacht). Participants read from the word list, reading each word twice. Acoustic analysis focused on two measurements: vowel duration and formant frequencies. The formants for each vowel type are comparable, but the difference in duration is significant, indicating that Irish schwa epenthesis is an incomplete neutralization process. While schwa epenthesis has been reported to create an identical phonological form to that of the underlying schwa, the significant difference in vowel duration indicates a residual contrast of the original underlying forms. Keywords: epenthesis, neutralization, Irish, vowel duration 1. Introduction Epenthesis is a recognized neutralization process found in a variety of world languages including Arabic, Welsh, Mono, and Dutch (Hall, 2006, 2011). The insertion of an underlyingly absent vowel neutralizes pre-existing contrasts between different lexical items. -
The Sanskrit Source of the Tocharian 4×25-Syllable Meter Dieter Gunkel, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
The Sanskrit source of the Tocharian 4×25-syllable meter Dieter Gunkel, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Abstract The well-attested Tocharian 4×25-syllable meter arose via the borrowing of the Sanskrit Krauñcapadā, a syllabo-quantitative meter attested only in Sanskrit metrical treatises and a buddhastotra found in the Kizil caves whose stanza likewise consists of four 25-syllable verses. The Tocharians adopted the three caesurae prescribed for the Krauñcapadā in the metrical treatises as well as two further “caesurals” that are present in the stotra but not in the treatises. They gave up regulating syllable weight, presumably because Tocharian phonology did not support it. As a result, the original motivation for the location of the caesurae, which divide the Krauñcapadā verse into moraically balanced half- and quarter-verses, was obfuscated, yielding a syllable-counting meter with fixed caesurae and cola of unequal lengths. 1. Tocharian meter as an indigenous tradition Were Tocharian meters influenced by Indic meters, and if so, to what extent? Since the outset of Tocharian studies, the prevalent opinion has been that the Tocharian metrical tradition, which is shared by both Tocharian languages, is independent of the Indian tradition. In Sieg and Siegling’s original formulation, “Die tocharische Metrik scheint selbständig dazustehen und nicht der indischen entlehnt zu sein” (1921:x).1 The supposed independence of the metrical form of Tocharian poetry may seem surprising given that the poetic texts are translations and adaptations of Buddhist Sanskrit originals. Furthermore, the Tocharian Buddhists did adopt the form of narration known as campū, in which prose and verse alternate.2 However, Tibetan shows that it is possible to retain and modify indigenous meters for the translation/adaptation of Sanskrit texts. -
Onsets Contribute to Syllable Weight: Statistical Evidence from Stress and Meter
Onsets Contribute to Syllable Weight: Statistical Evidence from Stress and Meter The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Ryan, Kevin M. 2014. Onsets Contribute to Syllable Weight: Statistical Evidence from Stress and Meter. Language 90, no. 2: 309– 341. Published Version doi:10.1353/lan.2014.0029 Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:12490320 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Open Access Policy Articles, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#OAP Kevin M. Ryan Harvard University Preprint version of Language 90.2: 309{41 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.