OF PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEMS SHI-ICHI TANAKA Nagoya …

REVIEW ARTICLE

METRICAL STRUCTURE AS AN ORGANIZING PRINCIPLE

OF PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEMS

SHI-ICHI TANAKA

Nagoya University*

Metrical Stress Theory: Principles and Case Studies, by Bruce Hayes,The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1995, xv+455pp.

1. The Core of Hayes' (1995) Framework

1.1. Historical Background and New ProposalsThroughout the history of generative phonology, there have been an

enormous number of descriptive and theoretical studies on the locationof stress accent and/or pitch accent, most of which ended up dealingwith the problem as language-particular phenomena until a turning

point came up in the late 1970s: the advent of Metrical Stress Theory(MST).1 The development of MST in the 1980s, which was in tandem

* This paper is based on part of my work I have been engaged in, attracted by

Hayes' intriguing ideas of accentual typology and inexhaustive facts of wonder inWinnebago phonology and morphology. I am deeply indebted to Suzy Fukuda,Adelbert Smith, Teruo Yokotani, Noriko Yamane, and two anonymous EL refereesfor their insightful and detailed comments on an earlier version of the presentarticle, which substantially improved its discussion and style. I would not havecompleted it without the assistance of all of them. Of course, I alone am to blamefor any remaining inadequacies or misconception therein.

1 The term of MST, which characterizes the field and also serves as the maintitle, is alternatively and more frequently used as simply Metrical Theory. Thelatter might encompass the objects of the field in a more rigorous way (or otherwisewould be called Metrical Accent Theory), because the field and also the presentbook cover pitch accent as well as stress accent. The same holds true for Halle andVergnaud's (1987) An Essay on Stress. The tendency not to use "accent" but"stress" can be ascribed to the fact that the theory was initiated and developed

principally on the basis of the analysis of stress-accent languages with a specialemphasis on English. Hayes (1995) is no exception, though without so muchemphasis on English. And yet the convention of referring to both types of accents

English Linguistics 14 (1997) 393-427(C) 1997 by the English Linguistic Society of Japan

-393-

394 ENGLISH LINGUISTICS, VOLUME 14 (1997)

with the orientation of Universal Grammar (UG) in the principles-and-

parameters approach to syntax, has made it possible to work out thetypological enterprise of accounting for stress cross-linguistically andalso of deducing its location in a single language from UG. Theunderlying hypothesis is that such a theory can both account for thestress systems of the world's languages and for the ease with whichchildren acquire complex stress systems simply by setting parametersone by one.

Bruce Hayes is a pioneer and one of the most prominent researchersin the field. His leading ideas have influenced both descriptive andtheoretical studies ever since the introduction of Hayes (1981), a pre-dominant dissertation which, no doubt, triggered remarkable develop-ment of MST at that time. We can now appreciate the presentvolume, Hayes (1995, henceforth H95), which can be said to have beenvirtually published in 1991 (when its manuscripts widely began tocirculate) and whose fundamental ideas are outlined in Hayes (1987).In other words, H95 is a refined and extended version of Hayes (1987),which attempts to provide an account of language universals and

particulars in the vastly-elaborated framework through an extensivetypological survey of over 150 languages.

In this review article, I will first sketch the renewal of H95's technicalclaims (Section 1.1), and then outline the basic tenet of MST that hasalso been the most essential ever since its appearance in the late 1970s

(Section 1.2). The following sections will be devoted to discussingseveral problems and consequences of H95's conceptual proposals

(Section 2), examining his account of accentual phenomena of a partic-

as "stress" constitutes a dramatic contrast with Haraguchi's (1991) A Theory ofStress and Accent, which still might just as well be called A Theory of Stress(Accent) and Pitch Accent, if we follow McCawley's (1968) definition.

After all, I can imagine that Hayes' choice of terminology stems from his firmbelief as well as from his central claim "that stress is the linguistic manifestation ofrhythmic structure, and that the special phonological properties of stress can beexplicated on this basis" (Hayes (1995: 1)), following the tradition of Liberman(1975) and Liberman and Prince (1977). In fact, as discussed below, Hayes' footinventory is based on the extra-linguistic rhythmic principle which incorporatesintensity and duration, while the location of pitch accent seems to have less to dowith rhythm based on intensity and duration than that of stress accent.

Throughout this review article, I will basically follow the general convention inreferring to both stress accent and pitch accent as simply stress, unless a strictdefinition is needed to characterize a particular language.

METRICAL STRUCTURE AS AN ORGANIZING PRINCIPLE 395

ular language deeply in light of the basic tenet (Section 3.1), and thenadducing evidence in favor of an alternative I propose (Section 3.2).The aim of the present article is, of course, not to criticize or cavil atthe content of H95, but to attempt to improve his rich and restrictivetheory by proposing a better way to maintain the basic tenet of MSTfirmly.

Turning to the content of H95, we must say that it really is com-

prehensive, systematic, and well-balanced in respect of theory andpractice. As the subtitle suggests, the first half of the book comprisestheory sections, which present a set of specific formal principles and

parameters of H95's particular version of MST, and the second half isspared for applications of the theory to a large number of language-specific stress phenomena. The core of H95's theory, which deservesto be described as notably unique when compared with the work ofother metrical theorists' or even with his own earlier work, can besummarized as consisting of the following specific claims or mechanismsconcerning language universals and particulars.2

First, regarding language universals, Hayes adopts the view thatstress-bearing units are universally syllables and not moras, whichamounts to saying that "stress contrasts may not occur within heavysyllables, nor may syllables be split between feet" (H95: 401). Thisstrong position contrasts well with the common assumption seen in such

previous typological studies as Prince (1983), Halle and Vergnaud(1987, hereafter HV), Haraguchi (1991), etc. In particular, HV takethe weakest position that stress-bearing elements can in principle beany particular constituents; for example, syllables (i.e. rhyme headvowels), vowels in the rhyme, phonemes (including consonants) in therhyme, or even lexically-designated segments. One of these values isselected on a language-particular basis.

Second, H95 claims that the foot inventory which natural languagesutilize is asymmetrical by nature and contains only the three types ofcanonical or proper foot templates illustrated in (1) (H95: 71) :3

2 The final chapter (H95: 400-403) is useful for a thorough picture of themechanisms H95 assumes, including those previously established in earlier studies,which are not addressed below.

3 I will follow Hayes' convention here of depicting a light syllable as ^, a heavy

syllable as -, and either syllable as σ. The former two may also be represented


(1) a. Syllabic Trochee: (*.) b. Moraic Trochee: (*.) or (*)σ σ ^ ^ -

c. Iamb: (. *) or (*)^σ-

Hayes argues on the basis of his own extensive survey that these threetypes in fact suffice as a complete set of the primitive metrical units,accounting for almost all of the bounded-stress (i.e. binary-footed)languages: in general, quantity-sensitive languages choose between theMoraic Trochee and the lamb, and quantity-insensitive languagesuniformly choose the Syllabic Trochee. He moreover demonstrates,from a conceptual standpoint, that all three types are the very linguisticreflection of purely rhythmic structures and that the completeness andasymmetrical nature of the set is a natural consequence of the law in

(2), which governs the extra-linguistic rhythmicity of the human mind(H95: 80):

(2) Iambic/Trochaic Law (ITL)a. Elements contrasting in intensity naturally form group-

ings with initial prominence.b. Elements contrasting in duration naturally form group-

ings with final prominence.Following the ITL, which is in accordance with the results of a series of

psychological experiments, trochaic feet are argued to consist of unitsequal in duration (i.e. (1a) and (1b)) while iambic feet are argued toconsist of units with durational contrast. That is why other feet, suchas the uneven trochee (i.e. the quantitative trochee) or the even iamb

(i.e. the syllabic iamb and the moraic iamb), are excluded from theinventory.4 Unbounded-stress systems have also been excluded here,but their treatment will be discussed below.

The third claim is that what has been thus far referred to as syllableweight can in fact be divided into two distinct notions: syllable quantityand syllable prominence. Syllable quantity, defined in the earliersense of syllable weight, captures a property of time dimension. It isrepresented by the mora count of a syllable: light and heavy syllables

as σμ and σμμ respectively, particularly when the number of moras is crucial for

characterizing the distinction between the two as in later sections.4 See Section 2 for the literature presenting arguments in favor of these excluded

foot types.


contrast by bearing one and two (or more) moras respectively.5 Whatis crucial here is the quantitative dichotomy of light and heavy syllablesby their mora counts. However, there are at least two empirical

problems with the theory: 1) some languages have a multiple weighthierarchy where three or more types of syllables contrast in stress rulessensitive to syllable quantity (e.g. Piraha (H95: 285-287), Asheninca

(H95: 288-296), and Hindi dialects (H95: 276-278)); and 2) moreover,in some languages, syllable weight involves structural properties otherthan syllable quantity, which therefore cannot be represented with themoraic structure (e.g. the presence and voicelessness of onset con-sonants in Piraha, and the presence of high tones in Serbo-Croatian,Lithuanian, and Golin (H95: 278-279)). H95 thus proposes the notionof syllable prominence which captures a property of perceptual salienceand is represented with grid columns on a separate and temporary

plane. Normally, what features are perceived as salient is phonologi-cally irrelevant, but the above-mentioned languages in fact exhibitdifferences in prominence and phonologize them with respect to stressrules.6

The mechanism of syllable prominence projection has several im-

provements concerning not only the empirical issues just mentioned butalso some conceptual issues. This mechanism enables H95 to hold thefirst view that stress-bearing units are universally syllables and toaccount for certain unbounded-stress languages which seem to have feet

5 More precisely, long and short vowels contrast in their underlying representa-tions by bearing one and two moras respectively, and in some languages, codaconsonants license an additional mora by the rule of Weight by Position.

6 One important difference in the behavior of stress rules between syllable

quantity and prominence is that only the former is relevant to foot construction,while the latter is limited to other metrical operations such as the End Rule anddestressing. As will be shown below, the End Rule, originally proposed in Prince(1983), serves to assign unbounded feet as well as higher constituents abovebounded and unbounded feet.

7 HV's line 0 projection, which takes the form of Stress-bearing elements are...,functions to assign either stress-bearing units, syllable quantity, or syllableprominence (though the manifestation of syllable quantity is also achieved by line 1projection, the Accent Rule), and can in principle provide any unit with a line 0grid as noted earlier. It can be said that Hayes has succeeded in factoring outsyllable quantity with moraic structure and syllable prominence with grid projectionon a distinct plane.


excluded from the inventory in (1). First, normal unbounded caseswith initial or final stress are accounted for by the End RuleLeft/Right. Second, "default-to-opposite" cases, where stress falls onthe left/right-most heavy syllable if any or otherwise on the right/left-most light syllable, are accounted for by quantity-sensitive right/left-dominant unbounded feet and the End Rule Left/Right. Third, mostimportantly, "default-to-same" cases, where stress falls on the left/right-most heavy syllable if any or otherwise on the same side, are accountedfor by the projection of syllable prominence on a separate plane andthe End Rule Left/Right. The former example of each of the threecases is illustrated below (H95: 296-299):

(3) a.

b.

c.

The "default-to-same" cases have been notorious since Prince (1983)due to their difficulty of analysis, but they can be accounted for withrelative ease by utilizing the notion of syllable prominence (forcomparison, see HV's (1987: 71-74) treatment of these cases).

The fourth of H95's unique proposals stems from the spirit ofKager's (1989) Strict Binary Hypothesis, although H95 adopts asomewhat revised and weakened version involving a parametric choice

(H95: 87, 400):(4) Strong/Weak Prohibition on Degenerate Feet

Degenerate feet are forbidden (entirely/in weak position).Under the weak ban, weak degenerate feet are removed atthe end of the word phonology.

Degenerate feet here refer either to the type of foot consisting of asingle light syllable in languages with the Moraic Trochee or the Iamb

(i.e. (*)^, in quantity-sensitive languages) or to the type of foot with any


(*)

single syllable in languages with the Syllabic Trochee (i.e. σ in

quantity-insensitive languages). Generally, the ban is absolute andsuch defective feet are prohibited everywhere, whereas they may belicensed only if they are assigned main stress (dominated by a higher

grid mark) in cases choosing the latter value in (4). In either case,degenerate feet are removed at the end of word phonology, wheremany words emerge with some of their syllables unparsed. This

practice leaves the consequence to MST that metrical structure creationis non-exhaustive. More surprisingly, this parameter is an empiricalclaim again based on a cross-linguistic survey of many languages, withthe result that languages with the former value (i.e. the strong ban)have the minimal word requirement that the size of content words bemore than the degenerate foot while others with the latter value (i.e.the weak ban) do not have such a requirement and in fact license CVcontent words.

Lastly, H95 argues in favor of some other parameters for foot

parsing which have not yet been seen explicitly (or even implicitly) inthe literature. The most significant is' the locality parameter, whichaccounts for the variable nature of binarity/ternarity in bounded-stresssystems (H95: 308):

(5) Strong/Weak Local ParsingWhen a foot has been constructed, align the window forfurther parsing either at the next unfooted syllable or byskipping over/^/, where possible.

(6) a. (*.)(*.)(*.)(*.)^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ...

b.(*.)(*.)(*.)(*.)^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ...

(6) is a hypothetical parsing from left to right with trochees, in which(6a) illustrates the strong local value for binary-stress languages and(6b) the weak local value for ternary-stress languages. This proposalmakes sense as a direct consequence of the non-exhaustivity of metricalstructure, and its significance lies in the fact that ternarity is explainednot by assuming the independently-existing ternary foot but by reducingit simply to the mode of parsing, and that the principle of localitystill holds since the mode of parsing counts only two elements. And

yet weak local parsing indeed appears to be a marked value, sinceCayuvava, spoken in Bolivia, is the only true ternary-stress language


that has ever been attested in the literature. This rareness, however,seems to be attributed to the fact that the windows resulting from eachskipping process are non-adjacent to the preceding foot boundaries justconstructed, though the parsing itself is taken to be local.

Other parsing parameters, which have been discussed in theliterature but have not yet been presented in their explicit parametricforms, involve persistent/non-persistent footing in the sense of Myers(1991), and top-down/bottom-up construction of metrical structures.As for the latter parameter, the unmarked parsing value is bottom-upof course, but H95 claims that there are certain languages wheretop-down parsing is necessary, such as Old English (H95: 117-118),Tubatulabal (H95: 263-265), and a number of other cases given in H95:117. This manner of parsing indeed has the merit of assigning cyclicmain stress and non-cyclic secondary stress in the sense of HV, withoutrecourse to line conflation as a device of deleting structures onceconstructed.

1.2. The Basic Tenet of Metrical Stress TheoryI have so far focused principally on the conceptual claims in the

kernel framework of H95's MST. They have had a significant impacton phonological theory, and constitute several improvements to currenttrends in the field, as is clear from the fact that there have been manyresearchers even in the framework of Optimality Theory (OT) whooften cite Hayes' work either positively or negatively. Thus, thesespecific claims naturally deserve careful consideration of their plausi-bility. We must bear in mind, however, that the most essential part ofthe spirit of H95's approach to MST lies not in the claims just sketchedbut elsewhere. In other words, the proposals sketched in Section 1.1will only make sense in H95's framework if this essential tenet of MSTholds. There might be readers who think that any form of MST issimply a theory for explaining the location of stress in a particularlanguage or in all languages, but this is a serious misconception.Rather, MST has been a promising theory not only for explaining thecomputation of stress distribution but also for discovering an organizingprinciple of phonological systems themselves. The central claim ofMST is that metrical structure functions as an organizing principle inthe phonology of a particular language and even in the phonologicalcomponent of UG.

This essential claim can be ascribed to the nature of stress itself:


stress has no authentic physical or phonetic correlate and thus is

parasitic. Pitch is the phonetic cue for tone in true-tone languages andfor intonation in many languages; duration is the phonetic cue forvowel length which is phonemic in many languages or otherwise forconsonant length in some languages. However, loudness (intensity) isnot the genuine phonetic cue for stress as was demonstrated by Fry's

(1955, 1958) perceptual experiments. This is why stress parasitizes thephysical resources of pitch and duration which serve other phonologicalends, and metrical structure is likely to interact with a wide range of

phenomena in phonology and to unify them in a coherent way.8,9The broad set of phenomena, in turn, can be adduced as evidence forthe existence of metrical structure, which appears to lack its phoneticcorrelate. The most likely candidates are intonation and segmentallength, but they are merely two examples out of many others.

The interactions between metrical structure and other processes canbe examined from a viewpoint of height (i.e. grids), boundary (i.e.brackets), and type and size (i.e. foot inventory); this is because

8 H95 furthermore claims that stress is parasitic because stress is the linguisticmanifestation of rhythm, which in turn is not tied to any particular physicalrealization: "one can detect and recognize the same rhythm irrespective of whetherit is realized by (for example) drumbeats, musical notes, or speech" (H95: 9). Ithink that the reasoning holds true only if rhythm and stress constitute a one-to-onecorrespondence, that is, in stress-timed rhythm languages.

However, rhythm can in principle correspond to any prosodic tier, namely byone-to-many correspondence: to moras in mora-timed rhythm languages, to syllablesin syllable-timed rhythm languages, to feet in stress-timed rhythm languages, and soon. Moreover, what MST has referred to as "stress" is not limited to stress accentbut includes pitch accent whose phonetic correlate is pitch to some extent.

I must therefore conclude that both stress accent and rhythm are parasitic, atleast in stress-timed rhythm languages, because stress accent is the linguisticmanifestation of rhythm. But this does not exclude the possibility that pitch accentis somewhat parasitic and thus involves phonetic resources other than pitch, since itschief physical correlate is indeed pitch but still shares more properties with stressaccent than with true tone, as McCawley (1968) correctly observes. It then follows that metrical structure as an organizing principle is construed as representing bothstress accent and pitch accent.

9 Dresher and Lahiri (1991) and Tanaka (1992) attempt to make the same pointexplicitly on the basis of Old English phonology, the former referring to theorganizing property of metrical structure as "metrical coherence." The ideaunderlying the term originates in Hayes' (1982) paper, "Metrical Structure as theOrganizing Principle of Yidiny Phonology," which first framed the tenet in anexplicit fashion.


metrical structure, usually referring to feet, is represented by bracketed

grids in Hayesian MST. First, concerning the set of phenomena sensi-tive to grid marks, nuclear intonational tones in English intonational

phrases can be invoked as an example.10 The starred tone of eachtune in (7), whose inventory is taken from Pierrehumbert (1980), consistently docks to the same syllable in each word, namely to the onewith the highest grid, or to that with main stress (H95: 10-11).

(7) [as si mi la tion]

M H* L declarative tuneM L* H interrogative tuneH M* L downstepping tuneL L*+H L scooped tune

Other examples sensitive to grid height are non-nuclear tones of"surprise -redundancy" and "chanted vocative, " where L* and M* tones

dock to the syllable with the lower grid (to that with secondary stress)which precedes/follows the main-stressed H* (H95: 16-18):

(8) a. surprise-redundancy tune b. chanted vocative tune

[col la bo ration!]

H L* H* L

[Poin dex ter!]

H* M*

Moreover, there are segmental phenomena which are sensitive to the

presence or absence of a grid (H95: 12-16): 1) flapping-/t, d/ may berealized as the flap /f/ word-internally when preceded by a vowel or

glide and followed by a vowel without a grid (data [deyfe] vs. attain[eteyn]); 2) intrusive stop-the sequence /ns/ can receive an optionaltransitional epenthetic /t/ when followed by a vowel without a grid

(Mensa [mεntse] vs. insane [Inseyn]); 3) l-devoicing-/l/ can Optionally

become voiceless when preceded by /s/ and followed by a vowelwithout a grid (Iceland [aysland] vs. Icelandic [ayslaendIk]); and 4)medial aspiration-word-medial voiceless stops are aspirated when they

10 The arguments taken up here as cases sensitive to the height of a grid mark

(none, secondary, primary, etc.) are treated differently by H95. They are treatedas ways of determining whether the vowel concerned is stressed or stressless ontonal and segmental bases, since stress lacks its physical correlate and thus may behard to detect even by native speakers. However, it seems to be uncontroversialthat these cases also serve as arguments for metrical coherence, as will be statedbelow.


are in the onset position of a syllable with a grid mark and are not

preceded by a strident (append [ephεnd] vs. campus [khaempes]). The

Rhythm Rule is also controlled by the presence of a grid position,because a higher grid can shift only to the existing lower grid as alanding site (Christine Smith [krIstIn] vs. *Lomont Cranston [lemant]).

The second kind of examples, where the boundary structure (i.e.brackets) is crucial, involve the directionality of stress shift under voweldeletion, which was also observed by HV: when a vowel with a grid isdeleted, the grid should shift rightward in languages with left-dominantfeet, and leftward in languages with right-dominant feet. This is adirect consequence of the grid position in relation to its bracket struc-ture (H95: 42):

(9) a.(*.)(*.) (*.)(*)

CVCV CVCV→CVCV C CV

b.(.*)(.*)(*)(.*)

CV CV CV CV→CV C CV CV

H95 discusses various cases in addition to those which have been

presented in the earlier literature: Unami (211-215), Central AlaskanYupik (253-257), Pacific Yupik (343-345), Asheninca (289-290), CyrenaicanBedouin Arabic (228-239). The English Rhythm Rule is also sensitiveto the presence of a bracket (H95: 43-45):

(10)a.( *)

(*←)(*)

(*.)(*←)(*)

.(*.)(*)(*)(*)

2 3 1

a hundred thirteen man

b. (*)

(*←)(*)

(*←*←)(*)

(*.)(*)(*)(*)

2 3 1

*overdone steak blues

c.(*)

(*←)(*)

(*←)(*)(*)

(*.)(*)(*)(*)

2 3 1

cf. overdone steak blues

For example, the word thirteen of the phrase in (10a) can undergo theRhythm Rule, whereas the word steak of the phrase in (10b) cannot,due to the blocking of the boundary.

The final piece of evidence showing the presence of metrical co-


herence is the most significant: the type and size of the feet given in (1)function as an organizing principle of the phonological systems invarious languages. First of all, according to H95, segmental phonologyis often directed towards reinforcing the maximal shapes of these feeton the surface, following the ITL. H95's cross-linguistic survey infact demonstrates empirically that generally (though not universally),stressed syllables are lengthened (i.e. undergo vowel lengthening or

gemination) in languages with the lamb while they are shortened inlanguages with the Moraic Trochee. This fact is predicted precisely bythe ITL and its governed foot type: such rules apply when the syllablein question is dominated by the non-maximal form of each foot type, asshown below (H95: 83, 145-147):

(11) a. Iambic Lengthening(.*) (.*) (.*) (.*)^ ^ ^ - ^ ^ ^ -

CV CV→CV CVV CV CV CiV→CV CVCi CiV

b. Trochaic Shortening

(*) (*.)^ ^

CVV CV→CV CV

The lengthening and shortening phenomena are not accidental for eachtype of language, because either type of foot, though proper as itstands, needs to be converted into its most canonical form as the lambor the Moraic Trochee.11 Second, the inventory in (1) is also tied to

prosodic morphology. As seen in McCarthy and Prince (1986), theprosodic targets for morphology at the foot level, which are relevantfor such processes as reduplication and truncation, are precisely those

posited in (1). It is thus uncontroversial that the foot type used in alanguage's prosodico-morphological system is the same in most cases asthat used in its stress system. Finally, as has been noted already, if

11 Regarding this prediction, H95 notes that there are languages, though notcommon, which have the Syllabic Trochee and yet have the lengthening rule ofstressed vowels (H95: 83-84). H95 attributes this apparent exceptional behavior tothe fact that lengthening in such trochaic languages is typically phonetic incharacter, falling short of the duration given to true phonological long vowels, andthat it is limited to the main-stressed syllable. In contrast, Iambic Lengtheningleads to the full phonological length of vowels or consonants, whose application isnot limited to the main-stressed position.


there is a minimal word requirement that every phonological wordcontain at least one foot, there can be no content words consisting of asingle light syllable in quantity-sensitive languages or of any singlesyllable in quantity-insensitive languages, though there is some param-etric variation in this prohibition. In either case, without the inventoryin (1), the minimal word requirement could not be specified acrosslanguages.

2. Problems and Consequences of the Theory

As can be deduced from the preceding discussion, H95 presents. anintegrated framework of phonology, whose main fruits, either descrip-tive or theoretical, have mostly been considered to be "established" incurrent trends of phonological theory. Hayes himself notes that "a

proposed parametric theory of stress is successful to the extent that it iswell-defined, is maximally restrictive, and is capable of describing allthe stress systems of the world's languages" (H95: 55), and it certainlyappears that the present theory meets such requirements. 12 Ironically,however, there are some problems with the theory which seem to havearisen for the very reason of its restrictiveness, or more precisely itsexclusiveness. H95 puts forth several strong arguments that stress-bearing units are universally syllables, that feet of bounded-stresslanguages are of only three types, and that degenerate feet are

prohibited across the board or otherwise are licensed only by mainstress. This strong position appears to stem from the very fact that thetheory is based primarily on stress-accent languages with stress-timedrhythm like English, following the earliest forms of MST by Liberman

(1975) and Liberman and Prince (1977). MST, however, can also beapplied to stress-accent and pitch-accent languages with syllable-timedor mora-timed rhythm, as H95 in fact analyzes such languages.

Problems essentially arise from two kinds of conflicts: 1) conflictsbetween H95's technical claims and the facts observed in somelanguages, and 2) conflicts among H95's claims themselves, with the

12 The restrictiveness of a theory should of course be measured from the view-

point of its maximal generality and its minimal number of principles, rules, param-eters, and so on which are assumed therein. However, I am not evaluating H95's

theory hereafter on such bases, since it is obvious that the theory is restrictive in

this sense.


resultant solutions by ad hoc means. Let us consider the first kind ofconflicting case in light of the technical claims reviewed in Section 1.1.First, there seem to be languages in which stress-bearing units aremoras and not syllables. Tanaka (1992) presents various arguments infavor of Old English as a mora-counting language, where moras areconsidered to be stress-bearing because a binary and not unary footmust be constructed over each heavy syllable; namely, this language is

(*.)specified for the Moraic Trochee in the form of μ μ, and the

second mora of a heavy syllable will occupy a weak position which is a

potential stress-bearer in every sense. Notice the difference betweenthe Moraic Trochee and the one in (1b), where stress-bearing units aremoras in the former configuration but syllables in the latter. OldEnglish is indeed not mora-stressing since stress never falls on thesecond mora of a heavy syllable (and this is due to the headedness oftrochees). However, stress-bearing units should be moras by defini-tion, and whether stress-bearing elements are moras or syllablesdepends solely on which prosodic units are dominated immediately bythe feet specified. There are, moreover, mora-counting and mora-accenting languages mostly with pitch accent in which a heavy syllablemay have falling or even rising prominence. The Osaka dialect ofJapanese is one such example which includes such words as onti 'badsinger,' minna 'everyone,' oido 'hip,' saigo 'last,' seekaku 'character,'and boozu 'monk' (Tanaka (1993)), and even such minimally-contrasting pairs as terito '(not) at all' / tento 'tent,' sendo 'the otherday' / sendo 'freshness,' and kooko 'radish pickles' / kooko 'archaeology';other examples involve Ancient Greek, Lithuanian, Hopi, and somedialects of Serbo-Croatian, whose valid analyses are provided in HV'smetrical framework where any elements can be stress-bearing, as

previously stated. Concerning this problem, H95 writes on page 49that "because pitch accent languages are tonal in character, they do notcounterexemplify the claim" and "they can be treated as involving tonalrepresentations within the word phonology, either in addition to orinstead of metrical representations." I agree that they do not con-stitute counterexamples to H95's claim, and that there is a full

possibility that these languages are better accounted for by tonalrepresentations. However, excluding these languages from H95'smetrical analysis surely leads to lessening the coverage of his com-

prehensive theory, at least as compared to that of HV's. This is


partly because the latter theory analyzes such languages as involvingmetrical representations and partly because Hayes himself tries to

present a metrical account of other pitch-accent languages such asSeminole/Creek, Winnebago, and so on. If pitch-accent languagesmentioned above as well as Seminole/Creek and Winnebago do involvemetrical representations in addition to tonal ones, the second mora ofeach heavy syllable must be stress-bearing in any case. Second, H95's

proposed foot inventory suffers from various empirical problems.There are in fact languages, as Hayes himself seems to admit, whichcannot be analyzed without foot types excluded from the inventory,and this point, or the validity of the inventory itself, has been attackedin the literature by Kager (1992, 1993), Hammond (1993), Mester

(1994), and Kenstowicz (1994), among others. The ITL has also beenchallenged conceptually by Kager (1993), who questions the parallelbetween linguistic principles and extra-linguistic psychological results.The same line of criticism is also found in Vijver (1995). Third, thereseem to be many cases in which a degenerate foot should be con-structed over a single light syllable in quantity-sensitive languages orover any single syllable in quantity-insensitive languages even when it isnot assigned main stress. H95 discusses many such languages himself

(H95: 98-101) and explains them by saying that the syllable in questionis phonetically lengthened, virtually taken as a heavy syllable on thesurface, and that it is a problem of interpretation as to whether aresearcher might hear and transcribe stress on that syllable, because itis phonetically long (i.e. phonologically, it might not be stressed!).However, this line of reasoning is of course not convincing and seemsto be unacceptable unless a rigorous inspection has been made of thelanguages concerned.

The second kind of conflicting case is seen within his own theoretical

proposals sketched in Section 1.1 above, which is resolved by devisingtentative operations in order to favor one of his technical claims overthe other(s) language-specifically. For example, H95 accounts for OldEnglish main stress on the word-initial syllable by constructing metricalstructures top-down, namely by applying the End Rule Left first andthen assigning left-to-right Moraic Trochees with the strong prohibitionon degenerate feet.13 However, in the case of words whose initial

13 For details of secondary stress assignment, see Dresher and Lahiri (1991) andTanaka (1992).


syllable is light and followed by a heavy syllable, a contradiction occursas illustrated in (12) (H95: 117):

(12) a. *(*)

(*)…^ -

b. *(*)

(*)…^ -

c. (*)

(*.)…^ -

The (12a) parsing violates the strong ban (i.e. (4)), while the (12b)parsing violates the Continuous Column Constraint prohibiting adiscontinuous grid column (Prince (1983: 33), H95: 34). The heavysyllable without any secondary stress is thus incorporated into the initialdegenerate foot in (12a), whose operation is called Incorporation, alanguage-particular choice (H95: 111-112). The output after this oper-ation is illustrated in (12c). But resorting to such an amendment leadsto an extraordinary form of the Moraic Trochee consisting of threemoras. If H95 adopts the view for this language that stress-bearingunits are moras and that degenerate feet are licensed, Old Englishstress is given a more natural account, as Tanaka (1992) shows, withoutIncorporation or even top-down construction. The top-down value ofthe construction parameter has never been found in earlier studiessimply because metrical structure construction has been assumed to beuniformly bottom-up.14 I can imagine that it is precisely because H95takes the strong position that degenerate feet are basically banned thatH95 has to appeal to an unusual means like top-down parsing. Thesecond case, Tubatulabal stress, clearly shows this point (H95: 263-265;the data are taken from Voegelin (1935)):

(13) a. (*)(*)(*)

^ - ^

e le: git'he is looking out'

b. (*)

(*)(*.)(*)^ - ^ ^ ^

hat da: wa ha bi'you may cross it'

c. (*)

(*.)(*)(*)(*.)(*)^ ^ - ^ - ^ ^ ^ ^

ana na: li lc: gc pi ga nan'he is the one who was going along pretending to cry'

14 The only exception to bottom-up construction was found in HV's analysis of"default -to-same" cases of unbounded-stress languages, which was challenged andnot adopted by Idsardi (1992).


Here, H95 assumes the language to be parsed by first applying the End

Rule Right and then constructing right-to-left Moraic Trochees with the

weak prohibition on degenerate feet. What is crucial to top-down

parsing is that the final syllable is given a degenerate foot of its own,namely that the final two lights do not construct a binary foot, which

would be predicted if parsing were bottom-up. However, a more

straightforward account is possible if degenerate feet over light syllables

are allowed and if the strings are parsed by right-to-left lambs and the

End Rule Right in the usual bottom-up manner. Finally, the most

complex and serious conflict of the second type concerns what H95

calls "the unstressable word syndrome." Consider the stressing of

disyllabic words in the form/^σ/in the case of languages with the

Iamb and extrametricality of the final syllable. With these cases, H95

comments on page 110 that "no foot can be constructed, since only

/^/is visible to stress rules, which cannot make/^/into a foot"due to

the ban on degenerate feet. On the other hand, "every word musthave metrical structure" according to the culminativity requirement."Thus in an 'unstressable' word, four factors-the shape of the input

word, foot well-formedness, extrametricality, and culminativity-are inconflict." H95 further assumes that "languages having the above set ofconflicting properties solve the contradiction in essentially ad hocfashion." 15

From the discussion thus far, it is clearly the exclusiveness of H95'sstrong position that brings about several conflicting cases in the presentMST. At the same time, most readers will naturally find that all typesof conflicting cases suggest an analysis in OT. That is, both the firsttype (stress-bearing units are syllables vs. moras, the foot inventoryis asymmetric vs. symmetric, and degenerate feet are prohibited vs.licensed) and the second type of conflicts are resolved by assuming thatconstraints are violable and that the phonology (or even the grammar)of a particular language follows from the ranking of conflictingconstraints, if each of H95's specific claims were to be reinterpreted asconstraints in the framework of OT. This reinterpretation has beenbrought into practice, as is obvious in current OT analyses of stress

15 He takes examples of such ad hoc means as phonetic lengthening of the penult,incorporation and shortening (if long) of the final extrametrical syllable, andrevocation of extrametricality.


phenomena in various languages. This is because H95's claims inSection 1.1 constitute the essential part of phonology and hence are

qualified to be constraints with some universality (i.e. ranked relativelyhigher but sometimes violated). In contrast, parsing parameters suchas top-down/bottom-up, persistent/non-persistent, and strong/weak local

parsing do not come into play in OT, because of its central assumptionthat the candidate set provided by Gen is evaluated in parallel andthere is no room for such derivational procedures.16 Regarding one ofthe other important issues, Walker (1995) shows that unbounded-stresssystems can also be neatly captured in OT.

The aim of the following discussion is not to translate the fruits ofthe H95 framework into OT, nor to solve the problems with H95outlined above within the OT framework. Rather, I intend to place aspecial emphasis on the question of whether H95's particular accountsof a wide range of stress phenomena reflect the basic tenet of MST, orotherwise how it will be reflected in phonology. The problems and theconflicting cases discussed in the preceding paragraphs are not soserious, and are even trivial in a sense; this is because the mostsignificant consequences of H95's theory lie elsewhere in adducingmuch evidence for metrical structure as an organizing principle of

phonological systems, whose spirit has been carried out since Hayes'earlier forms of MST. This is exactly where OT would most likely beunsuccessful at present by the mere ranking of constraints, for thereason of its immaturity if it does not yet suffer from structural defectsof its essential hypotheses. In either case, metrical coherence involvessome forms of "derivational" procedures, but whether such processescan be incorporated into constraints or reinterpreted by other meanswill be one of the central problems for OT to address in order toaccount for metrical coherence.

In Section 3, I will demonstrate that there is a particular case inwhich H95's account is by no means acceptable from the standpoint ofthe central tenet of MST, since it appears to be a mere computation ofstress location. What I will take as an example is Winnebago, aMississippi Valley Siouan language spoken in central Wisconsin andeastern Nebraska. First, I will introduce H95's account of the stresslocation of words with and without Dorsey's Law sequences (Section

16 For a treatment of ternary-footed languages in OT, see Kager (1994).


3.1), pointing out several specific problems with it, and then present analternative approach to the phonological system of the languagefollowing the basic tenet of metrical coherence (Section 3.2).

3. A Case Study: Metrical Coherence in Winnebago

3.1. Tone-Shift AnalysisTo begin with, it deserves mentioning that there has been much

controversy in previous studies about whether the prosodic system ofWinnebago is based on stress accent or on pitch accent and aboutwhether its stress-bearing (or accent-bearing) units are moras orsyllables (e.g. Hale and White Eagle (1980) vs. Miner (1979)).Because of space limitation, however, I cannot discuss this matter herein detail. In what follows, I will follow the lead of Miner (1979) inassuming Winnebago to be a pitch-accent, syllable-accenting language,as is the case with H95, and refer to prominent positions as "accent"instead of "stress." I refer readers to Tanaka (1997) for several argu-ments in favor of this assumption. Moreover, I will avoid presentinga descriptive generalization of a wide range of accentual facts seenin this language, reserving the remainder of this article for a detailedexamination of H95's and my accounts. I recommend referring toH95: 346-352 for a pertinent and elaborate generalization of Winne-bago accent.

Now let us scrutinize H95's account of the accentual system inWinnebago. In short, H95 thinks highly of the historical developmentof its accent, basically following Miner's (1979) insight. According toMiner (1979), Mississippi Valley Siouan languages like Winnebago andChiwere had in common a quantity-sensitive accent rule for their

protolanguage, which placed the accent on the second syllable if theinitial syllable was light or otherwise on the initial syllable, as in wasose' brave' and kiiza 'fight'; in addition, Winnebago also incorporated theaccent shift rule, which resulted in the present forms wasose and kiiza.In this respect, Miner (1979) and H95 reject restructuring, and assumethat the historical changes still function as synchronic rules. H95,moreover, assumes that the protolanguage accent rule is reflected onthe metrical representation and the accent shift rule on the tonalrepresentation, adopting a biplanar approach. Splitting the representa-tion into the metrical and tonal planes has been the usual practice inthe metrical treatment of pitch-accent languages since the enlighten-


ment by HV and Haraguchi (1991). More specifically, H95 proposesthe following rule-based system in which each of the rules is applied inthe order shown below:

(14) a. Foot ParsingForm lambs from left to right persistently with eitherstrong or weak local parsing and with the strong prohi-bition on degenerate feet;

b. H Tone AssignmentAssociate an H tone with the sonority peak of a syllablethat is the head of its foot;

c. Dorsey's Law (DL)Copy a vowel into an immediately preceding clusterconsisting of a voiceless obstruent followed by a sono-rant (OSVi→OViSVi);

d. Tone ShiftShift an H tone one syllable to the right if it isassociated with a light syllable or an initial heavysyllable;

e. Twin Sister ConventionDelete one of the two H tones linked to a singlesyllable (or they will be interpreted phonetically asone);

f. Tone DeletionDelete the second of the consecutive H tones if it isassociated with a light syllable.

For expository purposes, I will discriminate cases with DL sequencesfrom those without them. The examples in (15) illustrate typical deri-vations of the latter cases: 17, 18

17 Note here and below that only long vowels and diphthongs count as heavy inWinnebago; a short vowel closed by a consonant (i. e. (C)VC) constitutes a merelight syllable.

18 In the case of (15a), (15c), (15d), and (15g), their correct outputs can bederived through either strong or weak local parsing. The examples given areparsed strong-locally, since it is the unmarked value as noted in H95: 308, 400. Itis to be noted, however, that (15e) and (15f) can only be derived properly throughthe weak value.


(15) a. (.*)(.*)^ ^ ^ ^ ^

hoki wa roke 'swing (n.)'

H H

b. (.*)^-^

kiriina 'retumed'

H

c. (*)(.*)- ^ ^ ^

waiperesga 'linen'

H H

d. (.*)(*)(.*)^ ^ - ^ ^ ^

hiza kii casguni 'nine'

H H H

e. (.*)(.*)(*)(.*)^ ^ ^ ^ ^ -^ ^

wagigigisgap'uizere 'baseball player'

H HH Hf. (*)(.*)(.*)

- ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

hiizugoki rusge 'double-barreled shotgun'

H HH

g. (.*)(.*)^ ^ ^ - ^

haraginaice 'you'll suffer for it,

HH

Each of the above representations is the one immediately after toneshift (14d) is applied. As stated above, this rule can apply if the Htone is associated with a light syllable and there is one syllable availableto the right as in the case of the first H tone of (15a), whereas it cannotapply to the form in (15b) since the H tone is associated with a heavysyllable; however, it does apply to the form in (15c) since the heavysyllable is located initially. (15d) and (15e) are candidates to undergothe Twin Sister Convention in (14e), which is adopted from Clementsand Keyser (1983); and tone deletion (14f) applies to (15f) but not to

(15g) because the second H should be associated with a light syllable. With respect to foot parsing (14a) before tone shift, it is essentialhere to make two remarks. First, the binary feet on zere in (15e) and


on rusge in (15f) are constructed on the assumption of persistentfooting, or otherwise no feet could be constructed here due to weaklocal parsing and the strong ban on degenerate feet. Second, H95notes that whether a form is parsed strong-locally or weak-locally isspecified word by word, depending on morphological and possiblylexical factors. In the extreme case below (wiiragusgera 'the stars'),two outcomes are in fact allowed, which can be explained by settingboth strong and weak values for this form (H95: 347):

(16) a. Strong Local Parsing(*)(.*)(.*)

- ^ ^ ^ ^

wiiragus gera

H HH

b. Weak Local Parsing

(*)(.*)- ^ ^ ^ ^

wiiragusge ra

H H

The final H tone in (16a) is of course deleted at the final stage by tonedeletion (14f).

More complex are cases with DL sequences. H95: 361-362 claimsthat the DL sequence of the form OSV counts underlyingly as a singleheavy syllable, where the sonorant consonant as well as the followingvowel is assigned moras. When the sequence undergoes the rule, itbecomes disyllabic by resyllabification:

(17) Dorsey's Law and Resyllabificationσ σ σ

μ μ μ μ

OS Vi→OVi SVi

Examples are shown in (18), where each triplet of the representationincludes the stages before and after the application of DL, followed bytone shift, but the procedural details contained in (17) have beenomitted:

(18) a. (*)(.*)- ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

kre jusep→kerjusep→kerejusep 'Black Hawk'

H H H H HH


b. (.*)^ - ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

hikroho→hikoroho→hikoroho 'prepare, dress (3 sg.)'

H H H

c. (.*)(*)(*)^ - - - ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

wakripro pro→wakiriporoporo→wakiriporoporo 'spherical bug'

HHH HHH HHHd. (*) (*)(*)

- - - - ^ ^ ^ ^ - ^ ^ ^ ^

waapropro→waaporoporo→waaporoporo 'snowball'

HHH HHH HHH

The final H tones in (18a, c, d) are again the inputs to tone deletion.In spite of the apparent lack of empirical problems, the proposed

system for Winnebago accent seems to suffer from several conceptuallyserious problems, most of which can be said to come from themalfunction of metrical coherence; that is, the metrical structureconstructed does not work as an organizing principle of the proposedsystem but is utilized as a mere computational device of the accent

positions undergoing other tonal operations. If so, the metricalstructure proposed for this language is simply an arbitrary construct.The following are the principal reasons for such a claim.

First, as a consequence of tone shift, there occur cases, as seen in

(15), where metrical and tonal structures disagree in almost all outputs;that is, in some cases the H tone goes out of the right bracket of afoot, in others it settles on the non-head position of a foot, and inextreme cases it shares the head position of a foot with another H tone.All three types of cases violate the principle of metrical coherence tothe effect that bracket structures of feet should be respected and thatculminative elements like H and * should agree, or have a one-to-onecorrespondence between tonal and metrical representations. In thatsense, the Twin Sister Convention seems to be an artifact, resultingfrom some sort of strain in the theory. H95: 357 remarks that tonalanalysis of some Bantu languages necessitates the tone shift rule, andthat the three types of cases avoid violations of the FaithfulnessCondition on metrical representations. However, Bantu languages are


not pitch-accent languages but true-tone languages, and thus do nothave metrical representations, so that the disagreement of tonal andmetrical structures naturally does not occur even when tone shift isapplied. Moreover, it is true that, as H95 mentions, the FaithfulnessCondition on metrical structure is not violated in the tone-shift analysisconcerned (H95: 365). But this line of reasoning appears to be a kindof escape hatch; this is because it is a common practice that in pitch-accent languages, the effect of an apparent tone shift is obtained byfirst moving the head position * of a foot on metrical representationsand then associating an H tone with it, and not in the opposite order.It is evident that this way of shifting not only meets the FaithfulnessCondition but also the principle of metrical coherence.

Second, H95's tone-based analysis does not explain why only the Htone associated with a light syllable is shifted and deleted by tone shift

(14d) and tone deletion (14f) respectively, or why initial heavy syllablesbehave in tone shift as if they were light. The applicability of the tworules is obviously metrical in character, and not tonal, as Hayes himselfadmits on page 364, since it is sensitive to syllable weight or quantity.If so, a more natural assumption is that shift and deletion, if any, of aculminative element is reflected on metrical representations. Further-more, as mentioned in Section 1.2, pitch (i.e. the phonetic correlateof tone) and duration (i.e. the phonetic correlate of syllable quantity)are mutually independent issues in phonology; in fact, there seem to befew cases in true-tone languages where tone assignment is sensitiveto syllable quantity. In contrast, only stress represented by metrical

grids, essentially lacking its phonetic correlate, can be dependent onpitch and/or duration, i.e. on tone and/or syllable quantity; and stressof pitch-accent languages may be dependent on both tone and syllable

quantity, the former being reflected on tonal representations and thelatter on metrical representations. Incidentally, the fact that initialheavy syllables never bear the H tone due to accent shift might just aswell be attributed to left extrametricality, which makes them invisibleto H tone assignment.

Further problems with H95's proposed -system include the following.First, H tone assignment, which associates an H tone with the grid, has

generally been assumed to be a phonetically-interpreting rule in pitch-accent systems, because again stress lacks its phonetic resource andthus relies on pitch, or phonologically on tone. But unexpectedly, Htone assignment (14b) would be a lexical rule on the grounds that it


precedes DL, a cyclic lexical rule. Second, the special assumption forDL sequences in (17) is difficult to accept, because there seems to beno case attested in which prevocalic sonorant consonants bear moras.Moreover, even if there were any such cases in other languages, inWinnebago an anomalous trimoraic syllable structure would occur inthe underlying representation of a DL sequence with a diphthong likekaraire < /kraire/. The trimoraicity of a superheavy syllable, how-ever, is not manifested anywhere else and so is not motivated inWinnebago phonology. Third, the output candidates in (16) seem tobe ascribed not to the parametric variation but to the optionalityof rule application. In fact, a parameter value should be specifiedlanguage by language in general; specifying it word by word as in (15)or specifying both values for a word as in (16) is quite unusual in anysense. Finally, a diachronic account, including the quantity-sensitiveiambic rule followed by accent shift in any form, would be betterreplaced by a synchronic account utilizing a quite different accent rule.This is partly because generative phonology is concerned primarily withsynchronic grammar and partly because there are other reasons toreplace it as has been mentioned so far.

In the next section, I will bring forward a synchronic and metrically-coherent account which is immune to such problems as outlined above,and will also develop the notions of foot weight and grid distance thatare crucial to Winnebago accentology.

3.2. Syllable and Foot Structures in WinnebagoBefore demonstrating that my account can obtain the desired out-

puts, let us first observe Winnebago syllable structure. In thislanguage, underlying consonant clusters are limited to the followingfour types: voiced obstruents + sonorants (e.g. br, zr, gn, ...),voiceless obstruents + sonorants (e.g. pr, sr, kn, ... = DL sequences),voiceless obstruents + voiced stops (e.g. sg, xj, cg, ...), and voicelessobstruents + voiceless fricatives (ps, ps, ks, ...). I will assume thesyllable structure constraint proposed in Tanaka (1997, in progress),which adduces several types of evidence showing that the former twoclusters are syllabified as heterosyllabic while the latter two astautosyllabic (i.e. b.r, p.r vs. sg, ps), a quite different claim fromAlderete (1995). This proposal is also contrary to H95's assumption in

(17), where DL sequences are tautosyllabic previous to copying thefollowing vowel.


As for metrical structure construction, I will assume with Tanaka

(1996, 1997) that the language has the following system consisting ofthree levels:

(19) Level 1 (Cyclic)a. Foot Type: Moraic Trocheeb. Extrametricality: Leftmost Footc. End Rule: Left19d. Dorsey's Law

(20) Level 2 (Non-Cyclic)a. Clash Deletionb. Clash Movement

(21) Postlexical Levela. Clash Movementb. H Tone Association

Application of (19a-d) is trivial, but (20a, b).and (21a) deserve somecomments. Both clash deletion and clash movement are non-contextual repair strategies which are assumed to apply when universalor language-particular constraints are violated, here the clash avoidance

principle (cf. a series of Paradis's work originating from Paradis(1988)). Although they are non-contextual, their mode of applicationcrucially involves the mechanism of foot weight and grid distance.Foot weight is divided into foot prominence (i.e. the height of grids)and foot quantity (i.e. the number of moras), which is parallel toHayes' division of syllable weight reviewed in Section 1.1.20 Grid

19 Unlike H95, I assume the End Rule Left for Winnebago to capture the factthat "when more than one syllable in a word or stretch of utterance is accented,there is a downstep or terracing effect, each successive accented syllable having aslightly lower pitch and intensity than the last preceding ... an accented syllable in aword or stretch of utterance never has more accent (higher pitch, greater intensity)than the last accented syllable preceding." (Miner (1979: 25-26))

20 The definition of foot quantity in terms of the number of moras is due to thefact that Winnebago is a mora-counting language. In the case of syllable countinglanguages, foot quantity is equivalent to the number of syllables, i.e. unarity vs.binarity. This difference results in a significant consequence; for example, the

(*.) (*)weight of σμ σμ and σμμ is equal in mora-counting languages, but different in

syllable-counting-languages. Note, however, that in languages where stress-bearing

units are moras, foot quantity is equivalent to unarity vs. binarity and the number

of moras at the same time, i.e. μ μ vs. μ, even though they are mora-counting.


distance is defined in terms of the number of syllables interveningbetween the clashing grids (i.e. the adjacency of clashing grids). Therepresentations in (22) illustrate the entire range of repair applicationsin terms of foot weight and grid distance in the specific case ofWinnebago:

(22) a. Clashing and Adjacent Gridsi) Different Weight: Deletion (20a)* *

(*)>(*)/(*)>(*.)/(*)>(*)σμμ σμ σμμ σμ σμ σμμ σμ

ii) Equal Weight: Movement (20b), it possible*

(*)=(*.)/(*)=(*)σμμ σμ σμ σμ σμμ

b. Clashing but Non-Adjacent Grids: Movement (21a), if possible* *

(*.)>(*.)/(*.)=(*.)/(*.)>(*)/(*.)=(*)

σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμμ σμ σμ σμμ

In the adjacent cases in (22a), which of the two rules applies isdetermined by the weight of the feet concerned: if there is a differencein prominence and/or quantity between the clashing feet, clashdeletion naturally applies because it is the primary means for clashresolution at the word level; but if they are equal, clash movementapplies as a secondary means. Note the following three points here.First, the target of deletion is necessarily the grid of a lighter foot,while the target of movement is the grid of a binary foot in which aroom for grid shift is available. Second, both deletion and movementapply at Level 2, because their applications result in violations ofstructure preservation (the Faithfulness Condition in the former, andthe headship relation in the latter), and because their applications areobligatory. Third, as stated in Footnote 20, the weight relation seen in

(22a) varies among languages. For instance, the feet in (22aii) are notequal in weight in the case of syllable-counting languages, and aretherefore the target of clash deletion. On the other hand, in the non-adjacent cases in (22b), the weight relation between feet becomesirrelevant, and yet is seen as clashing in Winnebago, so that asecondary resolution, or movement, applies at the postlexical level:

postlexical, because its application is optional and sometimes sensitive


to phonetic length. This movement is exactly parallel to the EnglishRhythm Rule as in Mississippi River, which applies optionally inclashing but non-adjacent contexts.

Given the system in (19)-(21), as well as the repair algorithm basedon foot weight and grid distance, the desired outputs without DLsequences are derived simply as in (23):

(23) Forms without DL Sequencesa. (*)

<(*.)>(*.)(*)

σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ

ho ki wa ro ke

H H

b. (*)

<(*)>(*) (.)

σμ σμμ σμ

ki rii na

H

c. (*)

<(*)>(*.)(*)

σμμ σμ σμ σμ

wai pe re sga

H H

d. (*)

<(*.)>(*)(..)(*)

σμ σμ σμμ σμ σμ σμ

hi za kii ca sgu ni

H H

e. (*)

<(*.)>(*.)(.)(*)(.*)

σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμμ σμ σμ

wa gi gi gi sgap'ui ze re

H H H

f. (*)

<(*)>(*.)(.*)(.)

σμμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ

hii zu go ki rusge

H H

g. (*)

<(*.)>(*)(*)(.)

σμ σμ σμ σμμσμ

ha ra gi nai ce

H H

Clash deletion (20a) applies to (23b, d, e, f, g); clash movement (20b)to (23e); and optional clash movement (21a) to (23f). It is not clearwhether the non-shifted version of (23f) is in fact allowed. As H95:350 points out, there is a difference among previous studies in theinterpretation of the accent location in certain words like (24) (=(16)):


(24) a. (*)

<(*)>(*.)(*.)

σμμ σμ σμ σμ σμ

wii ra gusge ra

H H

b. (*)

<(*)>(*.)(.*)

σμμ σμ σμ σμ σμ

wii ra gusge ra

H H

Hale and White Eagle (1980) favor binary over ternary forms, whileSusman (1943) and Miner (1979) favor the opposite. I conjecture thatcurrent Winnebago accent tends to prefer binarity, because Miner

(1989) includes various binary data. If so, the tendency is construed asthe recent loss of postlexical clash movement (21a) in the environmentof (22b).

Now let us examine how words containing DL sequences areassigned their correct accent. The following are the representationsbefore and after the application of DL:

(25) Forms with DL Sequencesa. (*) (*)

(*.)(*) <(*.)>(*.)σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ

k re ju sep→ke re ju sep21

H

b. (*) (*)

<(*.)>(*) <(*..)>(*)

σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ

hikro ho→hi ko ro ho

H

c. (*) (*)

<(*.)>(*.) <(*..)>(*.)(*.)

σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ

wa k ri pro pro→wa ki ri po ro po ro

H H

21 As stated at the beginning of this section, voiceless obstruents and sonorantsare syllabified as heterosyllabic, so that the initial k in (25a) is floating and lackingits nucleus. In non-initial position, the voiceless obstruent may be either floatingor syllabified into the preceding coda. According to Miner (1989: 167), DL washistorically initiated from word-initial position. My proposed syllabification pro-vides a natural account of the historical event; that is, only word-initial voicelessobstruents lack their nucleus vowels and thus need some sort of repair. Fordetails, see Tanaka (in progress).

Note also that due to the initial heterosyllabic k, the leftmost foot in (25a) is notmade extrametrical at the stage before DL, according to the Peripherality Conditionon extrametricality.


d. (*) (*)

<(*)>(*.) <(*)>(*.)(*.)

σμμ σμ σμ σμμ σμ σμσμ σμ

waa p ro pro→waa po ro po ro

H H

e. (*) (*)

<(*)>(*.)(*) <(*)>(*.)(.*)

σμμ σμ σμ σμ σμμ σμ σμσμ σμ

raa ga kna sge→raa ga ka nasge

H H

f. (*) (*)

<(*.)>(*.)(*.) <(*.)>(*.)(.*)(.*)

σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ σμ

ha ra kisru jiksna→ha ra ki su ru jiksa na

H H H

When DL applies to the lefthand intermediate stage of each example,copied vowels are situated either inside or outside the feet, both ofwhich violate general constraints: the former cases (i.e. (25c, d, e, f))violate structure preservation because the copied vowels result internary feet, and the latter cases (i.e. (25a, c, d)) violate prosodiclicensing because they are not dominated by any higher prosodicstructures. These anomalous feet are reconstructed by cyclic rules

(19a-c). The righthand representation of each example is after theapplication of reconstruction due to the violation of structure preser-vation and/or prosodic licensing. Note, however, that the left extra-metrical feet in (25b) and (25c), though ternary as a result of DL, arenever reconstructed because of the very nature of their invisibility tostructure preservation. This invisibility also functions as the immu-nity of the leftmost feet from H tone assignment. This is the veryreason why initial heavy syllables never bear accent, even thoughWinnebago is a quantity-sensitive language.

Unlike Level 1 cyclic rules, structure preservation does not hold fornon-cyclic clash deletion and movement as well as for postlexical clashmovement. (25c-f) are likely candidates to undergo postlexical move-ment (21a), but this rule applies only to (25e) and (25f) here. As


mentioned earlier, the application of this rule is somewhat obscure, butat least it can be said that it is sensitive to phonetic length. Since theDL sequence of OVSV is relatively shorter or spoken faster than theunderlying CVCV sequence (Susman (1943: 9-10), Miner (1979: 26)),the clashing distance of grids becomes closer at the postlexical levelonly in the case of (25e) and (25f). As has been underlined, theirvowels are inserted by DL and thus shorter than the underlying vowelsof (25c) and (25d), and that is why postlexical clash movement,

possibly sensitive to phonetic factors, only applies to the former cases.Comparing H95's account of Winnebago accent with my own,

readers will naturally find that the former takes maximal advantage oftonal structures, and the latter of metrical structures. A clue to theevaluation of the two, which may be related to the problems indicatedin Section 3.1, lies in what they have in common. Unlike any otherapproaches so far, both involve some forms of deletion and movementin the phonological system of Winnebago. What will matter then iswhether they can give a principled explanation of why deletion andmovement phenomena must occur in this language, but unfortunately,the tone-based approach that H95 proposes seems unable to answerthis question. This disadvantage results from the fact that accentdeletion and accent movement are metrical by nature, governed by theclash avoidance principle. In pitch-accent languages, there are indeedlanguages like Japanese whose systems may appear to share 'morewith true-tone languages (Pierrehumbert and Beckman (1988)), butWinnebago must be said to share more of its system with stress-accentlanguages. In my account, H tone assignment (21b) is the only tone-related rule functioning as a phonetic interpretation.

4. Concluding Remarks: Where Does Metrical Coherence Fit in?

H95's account of Winnebago accentual phenomena is not metrically-coherent in that simple metrical rules work as a mere computationaldevice, and yet rich tonal operations are evidently based on a metrical

principle of clash avoidance. The aim of H95 as a whole, however,consists not only in analyzing intricate stress-accent or pitch-accent

phenomena language-specifically but also in presenting an unprece-dented theory full of typologically-significant generalizations, wheremetrical structure functions as an organizing principle of a broad arrayof phonological systems. It is not too much to say that the fruits of


H95's elaborate theory can be found on every page of the presentbook, and the disadvantages pointed out in Section 3 seem only to beexceptions.

Some readers sensitive to current trends of phonological theory mightwonder if such an appealing theory can be incorporated into an non-derivational framework like OT, aside from the validity of the incor-

poration. Indeed, computational aspects of metrical structures arerelatively easy to translate, as they have in fact been captured bydevising various kinds of constraints since the advent of OT in 1993.However, it appears to be rather hard or even impossible for OT toreflect the most crucial aspects of metrical structures; namely, the basictenet of MST, metrical coherence, is too early to incorporate into OT.This difficulty stems from the fact that as sketched in section 1.2, mostsegmental, morphological, and prosodic phenomena are often inter-related and organized by the metrical principle, and yet that the validrelation among relevant constraints or some other way to derive theeffect of interactive processes has remained unexplored at present

(this article is being written in October 1996). It may be that theinteraction of phonological structures is procedural or derivational incharacter, and impossible to capture in parallel. Among constraint-ranking analyses, however, the most promising is the Theory ofConstraints and Repair Strategies as has been demonstrated in Section3.2, for the very reason that it incorporates highly-general derivational

procedures (i.e. non-contextual deletion and movement) as well assome universal constraints. This is an inevitable conclusion of the

present study.It seems that we must await further research on the mechanism of

processing the interactive. behavior of phonological structures in parallelif we bring forward a non-derivational account of metrical coherence atall. See Alderete (1995) for an optimality-theoretic approach toWinnebago accent, and Tanaka (in progress) for the difficulty ofsustaining metrical coherence within the parallelistic framework as wellas of resolving several empirical and theoretical problems.

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Faculty of Language and CultureNagoya UniversityFuro-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya-shiAichi 464-8601e-mail: [email protected]

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OF PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEMS SHI-ICHI TANAKA Nagoya …