Cayuga Accent: A Synchronic Analysis

1997 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-322
Author(s):  
Carrie Dyck
Keyword(s):  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Vowel Length

AbstractCayuga (Northern Iroquoian) is a pitch accent language displaying different conditions for the accenting and lengthening of even-numbered and odd-numbered penults (counting from left to right). It is shown that Cayuga accent placement is predictable from metrical structure, and that metrical structure is in turn influenced by constraints on syllable structure. Syllable structure constraints are that: 1) all things being equal, coda consonants are parsed as light; and 2) vowel length is dispreferred. In odd-numbered penults, dispreferred syllable structure can be avoided, and this results in accented odd-numbered open penults and unaccented odd-numbered closed penults. In even-numbered penults, dispreferred syllable structure (especially that resulting from lengthening) is required in order to avoid metrically adjacent strong elements, and this results in the accenting of all even-numbered penults. The accenting patterns of Cayuga ultimately derive from the fact that Cayuga is a quantity-sensitive language that disprefers quantity.

Rate Limits of On-Beat and Off-Beat Tapping With Simple Auditory Rhythms

2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno H. Repp
Keyword(s):  
Dependent Measure ◽  
Physical Structure ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Finger Tapping ◽  
Adaptive Procedure ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Relative Difficulty

THE RELATIVE DIFFICULTY of on-beat and off-beat finger tapping with simple auditory rhythms was assessed in four experiments with musically trained participants. The rhythms consisted of cyclically repeated TT0 or TTT0 patterns, where T denotes the presence and 0 denotes the absence of a tone. The tasks were to tap in synchrony with one of the T ("on-beat") positions or with the 0 ("off-beat") position. Experiments 1-3 used an adaptive procedure that determined the fastest tempo at which each task could be accomplished. Experiment 1 demonstrated that it is easier to tap on tones that carry a rhythmic grouping accent (T2 in TT0, T1 and T3 in TTT0) than on other tones or in the 0 position. Off-beat tapping was more difficult in TT0 than in TTT0 sequences. Experiment 2 showed that a dynamic ( pitch) accent on one of the tones facilitates synchronization with that tone and impedes synchronization with adjacent tones. Off-beat tapping was less affected by accent location. Experiment 3 required participants to "hear" different T positions as metrically accented (i.e., to construe them as the downbeat) while carrying out the various tapping tasks. Most participants found it difficult to maintain a cognitive downbeat at fast tempi when it did not coincide with their taps. However, when such a downbeat could be maintained, it did not seem to increase the difficulty of tapping (with one exception). This suggests a unidirectional dependence of metrical structure on action. In Experiment 4, the same tasks were presented at more moderate tempi, and the dependent measure was the variability of asynchronies. Metrical downbeat location still did not have any significant effect. Thus, synchronization difficulty seems to be affected only by a rhythm's physical structure, not by the cognitive interpretation that is given to that structure.

scholarly journals Syllable structure and extrametricality

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Gordon ◽  
Carmen Jany ◽  
Carlos Nash ◽  
Nobutaka Takara
Keyword(s):  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Functional Basis ◽  
Final Stress ◽  
Stress Asymmetry ◽  
As Stress ◽  
Phonetic Study ◽  
Universal Pattern ◽  
Duration Theory

This paper proposes a functional basis for final consonant extrametricality, the asymmetric status of CVC syllables as stress-attracting in non-final position of a word but stress-rejecting in final position. A typological study of phonemic vowel length pattern in 10 languages with this final vs. non-final stress asymmetry and 30 languages in which CVC attracts stress in final position indicates a robust asymmetry between languages differing in their stress system’s treatment of final CVC. Languages that asymmetrically allow stress on non-final but not on final CVC all lack phonemic vowel length contrast in final position, whereas those lacking the stress asymmetry often have contrastive length in final vowels. It is claimed that the absence of phonemic length in languages that do not stress final CVC facilitates the nearly universal pattern of phonetic final lengthening, which threatens to obscure the perception of phonemic length. The enhanced lengthening of final vowels in languages with final phonemic vowel length reduces the duration ratio of CVC relative to CV, thereby reducing CVC’s perceptual prominence and thus its propensity to attract stress in keeping with Lunden’s (2006) proportional duration theory of weight. A phonetic study of two languages differing in the stress-attracting ability of final CVC offers support for the proposed account. Arabic, which displays consonant extrametricality and largely lacks phonemic vowel length in final position, has substantial final vowel lengthening, whereas Kabardian, which stresses final CVC and contrasts vowel length in final position, lacks substantial final lengthening.

scholarly journals Prosodically-conditioned Syllable Structure in English

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Orzechowska ◽  
Janina Mołczanow ◽  
Michał Jankowski
Keyword(s):  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Lexical Stress ◽  
Consonant Clusters ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Stressed Syllable ◽  
Main Stress ◽  
Unstressed Syllable

Abstract This paper investigates the interplay between the metrical structure and phonotactic complexity in English, a language with lexical stress and an elaborate inventory of consonant clusters. The analysis of a dictionary- and corpus-based list of polysyllabic words leads to two major observations. First, there is a tendency for onsetful syllables to attract stress, and for onsetless syllables to repel it. Second, the stressed syllable embraces a greater array of consonant clusters than unstressed syllables. Moreover, the farther form the main stress, the less likely the unstressed syllable is to contain a complex onset. This finding indicates that the ability of a position to license complex onsets is related to its distance from the prosodic head.

North America

2020 ◽  
pp. 395-407
Author(s):  
Gabriela Caballero ◽  
Matthew K. Gordon
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
American Indian ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
North American ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Critically Endangered ◽  
Indian Languages ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Word Level ◽  
North American Indian

This chapter explores the typologically rich but relatively understudied prosodic systems attested in North American Indian languages, many of which are either critically endangered or no longer spoken. Both word-level patterns (including stress, tone, and pitch accent) and higher-level phenomena (encompassing intonation and prosodic constituency) are considered within the broader contexts of prosodic typology and prosodic drift. Topics include segmental manifestations of metrical structure, phonetic correlates of prominence, the interaction between word-level and phrase-level prosody, morphological effects on stress, and tone–stress interactions. Drawing on a combination of phonetic and phonological data, this chapter synthesizes the relatively small number of rigorous case studies of individual languages with the considerably larger set of more cursory descriptions of North American Indian languages in order to gain an appreciation of this linguistic area’s numerous important contributions to both language description and linguistic theory.

Foot and Syllable Structure in Modern Icelandic

1989 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory K. Iverson ◽  
Courtenay A. Kesterson
Keyword(s):  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Consonant Cluster ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Foot Structure

As is well known, vowel length in Modern Icelandic is in general predictable on the basis of syllable structure such that, in polysyllabic words, stressed vowels in open syllables are long, other vowels are short; in stressed monosyllables, however, vowels are long whether the syllable is open or closed by a single consonant, and short only when the syllable is closed by a consonant cluster. In contrast to the ‘final maximalistic’ strategy of Árnason (1980) and other unlikely syllabification schemes designed to unify these two patterns, we invoke Giegerich's (1985) characterization of foot structure as applied to German and English, according to which stressed monosyllables categorize metrically as disyllabic feet whose rightmost member is null. Thus, CVC structures are metrically /CV.CØ/, with the result that the generalization regarding vowel length in words of all types is simply that stressed vowels in open syllables are long, others short.

scholarly journals Categoricity, Variation, and Gradience in Sambla Balafon Segmental Encoding

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura McPherson
Keyword(s):  
Verbal Behavior ◽  
Burkina Faso ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Inner Speech ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Rhythmic Structure ◽  
Inner Voice ◽  
Phonetic Detail

This paper analyzes the musical surrogate encoding of Seenku (Mande, Burkina Faso) syllable structure on the balafon, a resonator xylophone used by the Sambla ethnicity. The elements of syllable structure that are encoded include vowel length, sesquisyllabicity, diphthongs, and nasal codas. Certain elements, like vowel length and sesquisyllabicity, involve categorical encoding through conscious rules of surrogate speech, while others, like diphthongs and nasal codas, vary between being treated as simple or complex. Beyond these categorical encodings, subtler aspects of rhythmic structure find their way into the speech surrogate through durational differences; these include duration differences from phonemic distinctions like vowel length in addition to subphonemic differences due to phrasal position. I argue that these subconscious durational differences arise from a “phonetic filter”, which mediates between the musician’s inner voice and their non-verbal behavior. Specifically, syllables encoded on the balafon may be timed according to the perceptual center (p-center) of natural spoken rhythm, pointing to a degree of phonetic detail in a musician’s inner speech.

scholarly journals Restricting the Power of Cophonologies: A Representational Solution to Stem Allomorphy in Uspanteko

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn Köhnlein ◽  
Yuhong Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Complex Pattern ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Non Linear ◽  
Level Tone

In Uspanteko, a Mayan language spoken in Guatemala, certain possessive prefixes lead to variation in stress and pitch accent and can sometimes trigger vowel length alternations or consonant deletion in roots. We argue that this complex pattern of stem allomorphy can be successfully analyzed within a morpheme-based model of morphology given two assumptions: i. underlying representations can contain metrical templates (e.g. Saba Kirchner 2013, Iosad 2016, Köhnlein 2016, 2019 for recent proposals); ii. pitch-accent contrasts in Uspanteko are a surface exponent of a difference between trochaic (falling tone) and iambic feet (level tone), as proposed in Köhnlein (2019). We claim that our analysis is more restrictive than an earlier account by Bennett & Henderson (2013; henceforth B&H), who divide relevant items into several nominal cophonologies. In analyzing non-concatenative exponence as an epiphenomenon of metrical affixation, our approach is in line with principles of Generalized Non-Linear Affixation (e.g. Bermúdez-Otero 2012, Trommer & Zimmermann 2014).

scholarly journals Melodic constructions in Spanish: Metrical structure determines the association properties of intonational tones

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Torreira ◽  
Martine Grice
Keyword(s):  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Stressed Syllable ◽  
Prosodic Word ◽  
High Rise ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
Focus Structure ◽  
The Common ◽  
Pitch Accents

This paper explores phrase-length-related alternations in the association of tones to positions in metrical structure in two melodic constructions of Spanish. An imitation-and-completion task eliciting (a) the low–falling–rising contour and (b) the circumflex contour on intonation phrases (IPs) of one, two, and three prosodic words revealed that, although the focus structure and pragmatic context is constant across conditions, phrases containing one prosodic word differ in their nuclear (i.e. final) pitch accents and edge tones from phrases containing more than one prosodic word. For contour (a), short intonation phrases (e.g. [Manolo]IP) were produced with a low accent followed by a high edge tone (L* H% in ToBI notation), whereas longer phrases (e.g. [El hermano de la amiga de Manolo]IP‘Manolo's friend's brother’) had a low accent on the first stressed syllable, a rising accent on the last stressed syllable, and a low edge tone (L* L+H* L%). For contour (b), short phrases were produced with a high–rise (L+H* ¡H%), whereas longer phrases were produced with an initial accentual rise followed by an upstepped rise–fall (L+H* ¡H* L%). These findings imply that the common practice of describing the structure of intonation contours as consisting of a constant nuclear pitch accent and following edge tone is not adequate for modeling Spanish intonation. To capture the observed melodic alternations, we argue for clearer separation between tones and metrical structure, whereby intonational tones do not necessarily have an intrinsic culminative or delimitative function (i.e. as pitch accents or as edge tones). Instead, this function results from melody-specific principles of tonal–metrical association.

The historical background of the vowel ṣere in some Hebrew verbal and nominal forms

1994 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-144
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Khan
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Arabic Orthography ◽  
Short Vowels ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
Classical Arabic

One of the most important sources for our knowledge of the length of vowels in the Tiberian tradition of Biblical Hebrew is a corpus of manuscripts containing transcriptions of the Hebrew Bible into Arabic letters. In most of the manuscripts the Arabic transcription employs the orthography of Classical Arabic to represent the sounds of Hebrew. Since Classical Arabic orthography used matres lectionis systematically to mark long vowels we are able to reconstruct the distribution of long and short vowels in Tiberian Hebrew. The transcriptions show us that the main factors determining vowel length were stress and syllable structure.

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