San’ani Arabic Stress in Harmonic Serialism

The word stress system in San’ani Arabic exhibits patterns of stress placement that associate some level of prominence with syllables with long vowels and syllables that end in the left-leg of a geminate. The fact that such syllables always succeed in attracting stress away from other non-final CVC syllables, even beyond the final trisyllabic window, clearly indicates the role that underlying moraicity plays in the stress algorithm. The proposed account, offered in this paper for the word stress system in San’ani, is couched in Harmonic Serialism, as a serial version of Optimality Theory. Key to the analyses presented is the assumption of gradual prosodification. The distinction drawn between faithful and unfaithful prosodic operations allows for applying some in a parallel fashion, but confines others to serialism. Central to the analysis, as well, is the exceptional case of final stress, which is mainly attributed to the intrinsic prominence of syllables with underlying bimoraic sequences.

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Accounting for L2 learners’ errors in word stress placement

Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics ◽

10.17509/ijal.v5i2.1344 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 199

Author(s):

Clara Herlina Karjo

Keyword(s):

University Students ◽

English Word ◽

Stress System ◽

Word Stress ◽

L2 Learners ◽

Repetition Task ◽

Stress Placement ◽

Vowel Height

Stress placement in English words is governed by highly complicated rules. Thus, assigning stress correctly in English words has been a challenging task for L2 learners, especially Indonesian learners since their L1 does not recognize such stress system. This study explores the production of English word stress by 30 university students. The method used for this study is immediate repetition task. Participants are instructed to identify the stress placement of 80 English words which are auditorily presented as stimuli and immediately repeat the words with correct stress placement. The objectives of this study are to find out whether English word stress placement is problematic for L2 learners and to investigate the phonological factors which account for these problems. Research reveals that L2 learners have different ability in producing the stress, but three-syllable words are more problematic than two-syllable words. Moreover, misplacement of stress is caused by, among others, the influence of vowel lenght and vowel height.

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De verwerving van woordklemtoon in perspectief

Nederlandse taalkunde ◽

10.5117/nedtaa2020.2-3.012.fikk ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 25 (2) ◽

pp. 295-304

Author(s):

Paula Fikkert

Keyword(s):

Speech Perception ◽

Optimality Theory ◽

Theoretical Framework ◽

Stress System ◽

The Past ◽

Word Stress ◽

Production Processes ◽

Innate Knowledge ◽

Infant Speech Perception ◽

New Evidence

Abstract The acquisition of word stress in perspectiveThis paper reflects on the acquisition of Dutch word stress reported in Nederlandse Taalkunde 1 (1996), where I argued that children systematically build up a grammar for word stress that fits a parameter framework without assuming innate knowledge. In the past 25 years this work has been praised and criticized because (a) the theoretical framework changed to Optimality Theory, (b) the proposed stages did not always adequately fit the data, and (c) new evidence from infant speech perception suggested that children know the word stress system before they start speaking. To fully understand how children acquire word stress, the next 25 year requires researchers from various disciplines to join forces to study representations and perception-production processes in tandem, the mechanisms that cause learning, and the interaction of word stress with other linguistic subdomains.

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Acquiring variable stress in Greek: An Optimality-Theoretic approach

Journal of Greek Linguistics ◽

10.1075/jgl.5.06tza ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 97-125

Author(s):

Marina Tzakosta

Keyword(s):

Optimality Theory ◽

Native Language ◽

Natural Speech ◽

Stress System ◽

Theoretic Approach ◽

Stages Of Development ◽

Stressed Syllable ◽

Single Child ◽

Child Speech ◽

Parallel Fashion

AbstractThe present study treats the acquisition of stress in Greek. The goal is the investigation of the mechanisms through which children manage ultimately to acquire the stress system of their native language. The Greek data were drawn from the natural speech of five children ages 1;10 to 3;0 years. The findings of the research emphasize interesting similarities to and differences from the data of children who acquire other languages. More specifically, the children who acquire Greek show a systematic faithfulness to the stressed syllable, which, for the most part, they preserve in their realizations, however not in trochaic feet, even though they are considered the most natural structures in child speech crosslinguistically. As a result, iambic and trochaic structures are manifested in parallel fashion in the speech of different children (inter-child variation) or even in the speech of a single child (intra-child variation). The analysis of the data, done within the framework of the model of Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993), demonstrates that children use parallel grammars throughout the different stages of development.

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Stress Placement in English Quadri-Syllabic and Five-Syllabic Suffixed Words and Their Roots by Pashto Speakers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan

International Journal of English Linguistics ◽

10.5539/ijel.v7n6p123 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 7 (6) ◽

pp. 123

Author(s):

Afzal Khan ◽

Inayat Ullah ◽

Aziz Ullah Khan

Keyword(s):

Oral Reading ◽

English Language ◽

Research Study ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Stress Pattern ◽

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ◽

Primary Stress ◽

Word Stress ◽

Primary Word ◽

Stress Placement

This research study investigates the pattern of English (primary) word stress in quadri-syllabic and five-syllabic suffixed words and their roots by Pashto speakers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan and the effect of suffixation on stress placements. These suffixes in English language are called shifters which shift strong stress to the antepenultimate (third from the last), penultimate (second from the last), and ultimately (last) syllables, as well as those suffixes that do not shift strong stress to other syllables. The data was collected from sixteen Pashto language native speakers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan, by way of recording their oral-reading of a card that contained the selected words. The findings of this study indicate that primary stress pattern varies among quadri-syllabic, and five-syllabic, suffixed words. The three types of suffixes in English language assert different degrees of effect on subjects stress placement, which can influence the amount of correct productions by the subjects. Actually, the suffixes “cial” or “tial” and “ic” state a great effect on subjects primary stress placement, because the subjects were capable of generating the shift in primary stress in penultimate syllable. Unlike the greater number of incorrect productions in “tory” and “ity” suffixed words, the subjects were sensitive to the change of stress pattern, which assists a great number of correct productions in “cial” or “tial” and “ic” suffixed words. The findings disclose the fact that there was extreme unawareness of the strong stress shifting effect by Pashto speakers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which further needed more attention.

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Compound word stress

ELT Journal ◽

10.1093/elt/45.1.67 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 45 (1) ◽

pp. 67-73 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

David Taylor

Keyword(s):

Information Structure ◽

Point Of View ◽

Compound Word ◽

Compound Words ◽

Word Stress ◽

The Way ◽

Stress Placement

Abstract Stress in English compound words poses difficult problems for foreign learners. English does not seem to be at all consistent in the way it treats compounds, either from the point of view of writing or from the point of view of pronunciation and especially stress. If we look at how this uncertainty and inconsistency arises we can perhaps understand better the difficulties. And if we look beyond the principles of word stress to the principles of accent placement, and in so doing pay attention to the information structure of compounds, we can obtain valuable guidance about stress placement in these words.

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Native and Non-native Perception of Stress in Mapudungun: Assessing Structural Maintenance in the Phonology of an Endangered Language

Language and Speech ◽

10.1177/0023830916628899 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 60 (1) ◽

pp. 48-64 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Benjamin J Molineaux

Keyword(s):

Native Speaker ◽

Relative Difference ◽

Stress System ◽

Contact Conditions ◽

Perception Task ◽

Word Stress ◽

Endangered Language ◽

Bilingual Speakers ◽

First Languages ◽

Made In

Today, virtually all speakers of Mapudungun (formerly Araucanian), an endangered language of Chile and Argentina, are bilingual in Spanish. As a result, the firmness of native speaker intuitions—especially regarding perceptually complex issues such as word-stress—has been called into question. Even though native intuitions are unavoidable in the investigation of stress position, efforts can be made in order to clarify what the actual sources of the intuitions are, and how consistent and ‘native’ they remain given the language’s asymmetrical contact conditions. In this article, the use of non-native speaker intuitions is proposed as a valid means for assessing the position of stress in Mapudungun, and evaluating whether it represents the unchanged, ‘native’ pattern. The alternative, of course, is that the patterns that present variability simply result from overlap of the bilingual speakers’ phonological modules, hence displaying a contact-induced innovation. A forced decision perception task is reported on, showing that native and non-native perception of Mapudungun stress converges across speakers of six separate first languages, thus giving greater reliability to native judgements. The relative difference in the perception of Mapudungun stress given by Spanish monolinguals and Mapudungun–Spanish bilinguals is also taken to support the diachronic maintenance of the endangered language’s stress system.

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Serialism and locality in constraint-based metrical parsing

Phonology ◽

10.1017/s0952675710000229 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 27 (3) ◽

pp. 481-526 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Kathryn Pruitt

Keyword(s):

Optimality Theory ◽

Standard Theory ◽

Metrical Structure ◽

Local Interactions ◽

Local Systems ◽

Stress Assignment ◽

Syllable Weight ◽

Harmonic Serialism ◽

Non Local ◽

Constraint Ranking

This paper proposes a model of stress assignment in which metrical structure is built serially, one foot at a time, in a series of Optimality Theory (OT)-style evaluations. Iterative foot optimisation is made possible in the framework of Harmonic Serialism, which defines the path from an input to an output with a series of gradual changes in which each form improves harmony relative to a constraint ranking. Iterative foot optimisation makes the strong prediction that decisions about metrical structure are made locally, matching attested typology, while the standard theory of stress in parallel OT predicts in addition to local systems unattested stress systems with non-local interactions. The predictions of iterative foot optimisation and parallel OT are compared, focusing on the interactions of metrical parsing with syllable weight, vowel shortening and constraints on the edges of prosodic domains.

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Is second language lexical access prosodically constrained? Processing of word stress by French Canadian second language learners of English

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716408080247 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 29 (4) ◽

pp. 553-584 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

ANNIE TREMBLAY

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Lexical Access ◽

Lexical Processing ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Word Identification ◽

Canadian French ◽

Primary Stress ◽

Word Stress ◽

L2 Learners ◽

Stress Placement

ABSTRACTThe objectives of this study are (a) to determine if native speakers of Canadian French at different English proficiencies can use primary stress for recognizing English words and (b) to specify how the second language (L2) learners' (surface-level) knowledge of L2 stress placement influences their use of primary stress in L2 word recognition. Two experiments were conducted: a cross-modal word-identification task investigating (a) and a vocabulary production task investigating (b). The results show that several L2 learners can use primary stress for recognizing English words, but only the L2 learners with targetlike knowledge of stress placement can do so. The results also indicate that knowing where primary stress falls in English words is not sufficient for L2 learners to be able to use stress for L2 lexical access. This suggests that the problem that L2 word stress poses for many native speakers of (Canadian) French is at the level of lexical processing.

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Moraic coda sonority in Chilean Spanish

Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics ◽

10.33137/twpl.v41i1.32761 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 41 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Nate Shaftoe

Keyword(s):

Optimality Theory ◽

Harmonic Serialism ◽

Moraic Theory ◽

Chilean Spanish

This paper discusses coda lenition phenomena in Chilean Spanish, seeking to create a unified analysis for coda obstruent gliding and /s/-reduction. The paper invokes Moraic Theory to motivate lenition of certain segments in coda position. Using Harmonic Serialism, a serial variant of Optimality Theory, Chilean Spanish is shown to have a minimum sonority requirement on coda segments, and lenites insufficiently sonorous segments. /s/ is shown to place-delete to [h] to avoid sonority restrictions. The lack of /ʔ/ causes obstruents to diverge their derivation from that of /s/. Lenition to glottal segments is preferred, but gliding occurs if this is impossible.

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Is there an interlanguage intelligibility benefit in perception of English word stress?

Loquens ◽

10.3989/loquens.2019.061 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 061

Author(s):

Rana Almbark ◽

Nadia Bouchhioua ◽

Sam Hellmuth

Keyword(s):

English Word ◽

Structural Knowledge ◽

English Speakers ◽

Stress Perception ◽

Sentence Recognition ◽

Word Stress ◽

Minimal Pairs ◽

Unstressed Syllable ◽

Final Stress ◽

L1 English

This paper asks whether there is an ‘interlanguage intelligibility benefit’ in perception of word-stress, as has been reported for global sentence recognition. L1 English listeners, and L2 English listeners who are L1 speakers of Arabic dialects from Jordan and Egypt, performed a binary forced-choice identification task on English near-minimal pairs (such as[ˈɒbdʒɛkt] ~ [əbˈdʒɛkt]) produced by an L1 English speaker, and two L2 English speakers from Jordan and Egypt respectively. The results show an overall advantage for L1 English listeners, which replicates the findings of an earlier study for general sentence recognition, and which is also consistent with earlier findings that L1 listeners rely more on structural knowledge than on acoustic cues in stress perception. Non-target-like L2 productions of words with final stress (which are primarily cued in L1 production by vowel reduction in the initial unstressed syllable) were less accurately recognized by L1 English listeners than by L2 listeners, but there was no evidence of a generalized advantage for L2 listeners in response to other L2 stimuli.

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