scholarly journals Word Stress in Qassimi Arabic: A Constraint-Based Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Reem Mohammed Alabeeky
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Surface Structures ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Constraint Relation ◽  
Najdi Arabic ◽  
Stress Patterns

This study aimed to produce a formalism of word stress in Qassimi Arabic (QA), which is a sub-dialect of Najdi Arabic (NA), using a constraint-based approach. To this end, this paper investigated two main topics: The first topic explored word stress in QA. Word stress in QA, as well as in NA, is predictable; it can be determined by syllable weight and position. However, two cases do not conform to such straightforward stress rules. These cases are represented by the words: [ʔal.ʕa.sˤir] ‘afternoon’ and [ʔa.ʕa.rif] ‘I know’. Derivational analysis of these exceptions shows the importance of relating the surface structures of such forms to their underlying representations. The second topic aimed to make a formalism for stress patterns in QA using optimality theory (OT). Thus, QA word stress rules and their exceptions are translated into conflicting constraints that are ranked relative to one another by the use of constraint-relation tableaux. This ranking eventually produced the following constraint-relation hierarchy: Lx≈Pr, SYLLABLE-INTEGRITY, TROCHAIC, FAITH-PK >> NONFINAL >> *[ʔa. >> FTBIN-µ, WSP, ALL-FEET-RIGHT >> MAIN-RIGHT, PARSE-σ.

scholarly journals The stability of word stress across Mixean languages

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Jany
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Studies ◽  
Stress System ◽  
Stress Assignment ◽  
Edge Orientation ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Phonological Structure ◽  
Heavy Syllable ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Stress Patterns

<p>Word stress patterns have been widely discussed for individual languages and in typological work (Van der Hulst 2010), but there are very few comparative studies within language families and across dialects. This paper examines stress patterns in Mixean varieties and how they relate to the phonological distinctions among these varieties. The term ‘variety’ is applied here as in a number of cases it has yet to be determined whether a variety constitutes its own language or a dialect.</p><p>Word stress does not vary in Mixean languages, always falling on the rightmost heavy root syllable, but roots often represent the only heavy syllable(s) in a word. As a result, syllable weight plays only a minimal role in stress assignment. Rather, the stress system rests upon edge-orientation and morphological conditioning. If it relied to a greater extent on the phonological structure of words, some deviation would be expected, given that variation among Mixean languages is primarily phonologically based. This paper demonstrates how weight-sensitive stress patterns can remain stable across related languages even in light of major phonological differences.</p>

Russian iambic pentameter

2001 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 187-203
Author(s):  
Emily Klenin
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Line Length ◽  
General Tendency ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Russian Poetry ◽  
Iambic Pentameter ◽  
Stress Patterns

The Russian pentameter is historically associated with the English and German traditions, but typologically it has with some justice been compared to the French decasyllable. The present article analyzes the structure and cultural context of Russian pentameter and examines in detail the use of caesura in a small corpus of iambic pentameter poems by Afanasy Fet. It is shown that the use of caesura correlates with patterns of word stress. In particular, the appearance of caesuraed lines in poems in which caesura is relatively weak correlates with the stress patterns of the lines in question: caesuraed lines are less heavily stressed than uncaesuraed ones, a correlation that theoretically should promote equalization of line length across the text. Russian poetry has a general tendency to promote equality of line length, and the intrusion of occasional I6 lines into I5 texts, a phenomenon known in many Russian I5 poems, can be viewed as a related strategy for handling ragged I5 lines.

scholarly journals Compensatory Lengthening in OT and DOT: Loss of Dorsal Fricatives in Middle
or Early Modern English

2019 ◽  
pp. 47-61
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Kleban
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Working Solution ◽  
Vowel Lengthening ◽  
Compensatory Lengthening ◽  
Lexical Phonology

The loss of dorsal fricatives in English held significant consequences for the adjacent tautosyllabic vowels, which underwent Compensatory Lengthening in order to preserve a syllable weight. While the process appears to be regular in descriptive terms, its evaluation handled within standard Optimality Theory highlights the ineffectiveness of the framework to parse both the segment deletion and two weight-related processes: Weight- by-Position and vowel lengthening due to mora preservation. As Optimality Theory has failed to analyse the data in a compelling manner, the introduction of derivation, benefitting from the legacy of Lexical Phonology, seems inevitable. The working solution is provided by Derivational Optimality Theory, which assumes a restrictive use of intermediate stages throughout the evaluation.

scholarly journals The Impact of Visual Aids on the Retention of English Word Stress Patterns

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farid Ghaemi ◽  
Fahimeh Rafi
Keyword(s):  
English Word ◽  
Placement Test ◽  
Visual Aids ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Group A ◽  
Group B ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Stress Patterns

The present study aimed at comparing the effectiveness of three different techniques on learners’ long term memorization of English word stress patterns. After administering a quick placement test, 67 Iranian EFL elementary learners at language institutes were selected to participate in the study. Then they were divided into three groups. Before starting the instruction, a pretest was conducted to classify the participants’ abilities on word stress patterns. Then the new techniques were used to teach English word stress patterns. In all three groups, words were printed largely on a piece of paper and the syllables were clearly specified by dots. In group ‘A’, pronunciation and stress pattern of new words were taught aurally through the repetition of the words. In group ‘B’, all the procedure was exactly similar to that of group ‘A’, the only difference was that the stressed syllables were printed in bold. In group ‘C’, all the procedure was exactly similar to that of group ‘B’,  except that the stressed syllables were not only printed in bold, but also introduced by teacher’s hand gesture. After two weeks, a delayed posttest was conducted to check long term memorization of the word stress patterns. The results of the study indicated that there was a significant difference between pretest and delayed posttest in all three groups. But the most meaningful difference belonged to group ‘C’. That is, the participants in the third group (gesture group) outperformed those in the other groups. Finally, some implications and suggestions provided for further research.   

scholarly journals Exceptional Arabic Diminutive Forms of Nouns with [aa]: An Optimality-Theoretic Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 68
Author(s):  
Albatool Mohammed Abalkheel
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Theoretic Analysis ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Morphological Processes ◽  
Arabic Dialects

Most diminutive forms in Arabic adhere in their derivation to certain simple phonological and morphological processes without any complications. However, there are exceptions to be found, including diminutive forms of nouns with [aa] in which the segment [w] surfaces. Using Optimality Theory (OT) as a framework and using syllable weight as a base of analysis, this study aims to provide an accurate explanation of such phenomena. This work will show that the root of words with [w] is not simply biconsonantal with an emphatic segment (i.e., [w]) inserted to fill the empty onset. Instead, the root is triconsonantal in which [w] is an essential segment. It also reveals that syllable-weight constraint is inviolable in Arabic dialects.

Meters and formulas

2001 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 113-136
Author(s):  
Bruno Paoli
Keyword(s):  
Arabic Poetry ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Metrical Pattern ◽  
Word Boundaries ◽  
Aspectual Markers ◽  
Stress Patterns

This paper deals with the metrical and rhythmical foundations of the formulaic style of ancient Arabic poetry. It is first shown how proper formulas can match different verse-patterns, by means of slight modifications such as the adjunction, deletion or substitution of conjunctions, prepositions, interrogative pronouns or aspectual markers, which partly behave like “stop-gaps”, keeping the meaning unchanged while modifying the metrical pattern of the formula. The analysis is then extended to “rhythmical formulas”, i.e. to combined metrical and word-stress patterns which serve as models for a great number of “formulaic expressions”. Word boundaries may be specified, as well as some morphological and syntactical informations, so that expressions derived from a same rhythmical formula can be classified into a number of more or less abstract subcategories. Finally, the syntagmatic combination of rhythmical formulas into lines leads to the identification of a small number of prototypical verse-instances underlying the various actual instances of a same verse-pattern.

Prefixation and stress in Old English In memoriam Richard Hogg (1944–2007)

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donka Minkova
Keyword(s):  
Data Base ◽  
Old English ◽  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
In Memoriam ◽  
Stress Patterns

Some questions not usually answered in the Old English (OE) philological and linguistic canon are: to what extent is the prosodic behavior of OE prefixes attributable to their lexical form vs. the morphosyntactic nature of the bases they attach to, what taxonomy covers the distribution of stressed and unstressed forms best, how do OE prefixes compare to Present Day English (PDE) prefixes, and what do stacked prefixes reveal about the morphology-prosody interface. The paper reexamines these questions, expands considerably the empirical data-base for their discussion, and offers an account of the observed stress patterns in terms of Optimality Theory (OT).

Serialism and locality in constraint-based metrical parsing

Phonology ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-526 ◽  
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.

scholarly journals On Syllable Weight in Amharic

Aethiopica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Voigt
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Data Base ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Incomplete Knowledge ◽  
Inaccurate Data ◽  
The One ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Stress Patterns ◽  
Made In

Contrary to the claim made in a recently published article, that literature on Amharic stress is ‘almost nonexistent’, I present and quote from the works of Armbruster, Guidi, Abraham, and others, and discuss their concept of stress patterns in Amharic. However, my criticism mainly concerns the data base used in the aforementioned article which addresses the topic of syllable weight, and where an attempt is made to analyse stress in Amharic based on a large number of examples. In these examples, however, consonantal lengthening and the distinction between the central vowels ǝ and ä and ä and a are incorrectly represented in almost all verbal forms, infinitives, and adjectives. This is partly the result of the informants speaking Amharic as their second language, and partly due to the fieldworkers’ incomplete knowledge of the language. This gives rise to many mistakes even amongst the simplest one- and two-syllable words. Ultimately this raises the question of whether those authors’ linguistic conclusions on the moraic nature of codas can be regarded as safe since it is based on inaccurate data. I also apply my own analysis to Amharic reduplicated adjectival forms, which differs from the one proposed in the said article.

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