36602. PHONOLOGY Prof. Y. N.

Falk

Stress Rules, p. 1
Examples are from Bruce Hayes (1985) A Metrical Theory of Stress Rules. Garland (originally his 1980 MIT PhD dissertation.), Morris Halle and Jean-Roger Vergnaud (1987) An Essay
on Stress. MIT Press, Iggy Roca and Wyn Johnson (1999) A Course in Phonology Blackwell, and Morris Halle and G. N. Clements (1983) Problem Book in Phonology MIT Press.
Information about languages comes from www.ethnologue.com.

Basics
Bengali
Indic (Indo-European)
language with 207 million
(1) 6pon ‘personal’ speakers; spoken by 100
million in Bangladesh
(2) dh9pa ‘washerman’ (arrow on right) and over
(3) 6pnar ‘your own (honorific)’ 70 million in West Bengal
state and neighboring
(4) b6čorik ‘annual’ areas in India (arrow on
(5) 9nuš
ron ‘pursuit’ left).
(6) p6romanobik ‘atomic, molecular’

Project syllable heads onto baseline

Word is left-headed (i.e. Project the leftmost asterisk)

∗ Stress line 1
∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ Baseline
paromanob ik

French
Romance (Indo-European), spoken by 77 million in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Quebec, etc.
The transcriptions reflect a formal style of pronunciation; the vowel transcribed [] is really a short [
¨ ].
(1) alokasy
˜ ‘allocation’ (4) opiny
˜ ‘opinion’
(2) ekstr6 ‘extra’ (5) fonoloz̆H ‘phonology’
(3) kãdid6 ‘candidate’ (6) kstrJ m ‘extreme’

Project syllable heads onto baseline.

Make rightmost asterisk extrametrical if it dominates [].
Word is right-headed.

∗ Stress line 1 ∗ Stress line 1

∗∗ ∗ ∗ Baseline ∗ ∗ <∗> Baseline
alokasy
˜ kstrm
36602. PHONOLOGY Prof. Y. N. Falk

Stress Rules, p. 2
Feet and Parameters
Maranungku

(1) tHralk ‘saliva’

(2) mPrepQt ‘beard’
(3) y6ngarmRta ‘the Pleiades’
(4) l6ngkarRtetS ‘prawn’
(5) wPlepQnemRnta ‘kind of duck’

Stress is on odd-numbered syllables, counting from

the beginning of the word. Main stress is the left-
Non-Pama-Nyungan Australian language, spoken in Northern
most one. Territory southwest of Darwin. Like the nearby Malak-Malak, it is
a language on the verge of extinction, with 15–20 speakers
reported in 1983.

Project syllable heads onto baseline.

Construct Stress Line 1 by building left-headed feet left-to-right.
Construct Stress Line 2 by making the word left-headed.

∗ Stress Line 2 ∗ Stress Line 2

(∗ ∗ ∗) Stress Line 1 (∗ ∗ ∗) Stress Line 1
(∗ ∗)(∗ ∗)(∗) Baseline (∗ ∗) (∗ ∗ )(∗ ∗) Baseline
langk a rat e t i wel e penemanta

Note that the degenerate foot is stressed.

Trans-New Gui-
Weri ne a ( P a p u a n )
language with ap-
prox. 4000
(1) ãntJ p ‘bee’ speakers, spoken
in Papua New Gui-
(2) kT lpJ ‘hair of arm’ nea (Morobe Pro-
(3) lT amJ t ‘mist’ vince, Wau
District)
(4) RknQtep6l ‘times’

Stress on odd numbered syllables counting from the

end of the word. The final syllable has main stress.
36602. PHONOLOGY Prof. Y. N. Falk

Stress Rules, p. 3
Project syllable heads onto baseline.
Construct Stress Line 1 by building right-headed feet right-to-left.
Construct Stress Line 2 by making the word right-headed.

∗ Stress Line 2 ∗ Stress Line 2

(∗ ∗) Stress Line 1 (∗ ∗ ∗) Stress Line 1
(∗ ∗)(∗ ∗) Baseline (∗) (∗ ∗)(∗ ∗) Baseline
 l  am t ak  net a pal

Language of
Warao uncertain
classification
(1) yRpurUkitRneh6se ‘verily to climb’ with 28,100
speakers,
(2) nRhorVahRkut6i ‘the one who ate’ spoken in
(3) yiwRran6e ‘he finished it’ Venzuela.
(4) enRhorVahRkut6i ‘the one who caused him to
eat’

This is like Weri, but shifted one syllable to the left. That is to say, it looks as if the stress rules are the
same as Weri, but the last syllable doesn’t count. The final syllable is extrametrical.

Project syllable heads onto baseline.

Final baseline element is extrametrical.
Construct Stress Line 1 by building right-headed feet right-to-left.
Construct Stress Line 2 by making the word right-headed.

∗ Stress Line 2
(∗ ∗ ∗ ∗) Stress Line 1
(∗) (∗ ∗ )(∗ ∗ )(∗ ∗ ) <∗> Baseline
yap uruk i tan ehas e

Malak-Malak (from the “Rhythm” handout)

(1) 
núãkuřùntuwöröwàkka ‘You (pl) would have given them meat’
(2) wuwúntunùnuwàkna ‘He would have given you (sg) meat.’
(3) 
nönkör 
önöyùnka ‘You (pl) will lie down.’
(4) ařkíniyàãka ‘We are all going to stand.’
(5) múnankàřa ‘beautiful’
(6) wúru ‘arm, rivulet’
(7) mlpápu or m´lpapù ‘father’

Stress is on the next-to-last (penultimate) syllable, and on alternating syllables before that. Stress clash
is resolved by deleting the first stress or, in the case of words with three syllables, optionally by moving
36602. PHONOLOGY Prof. Y. N. Falk

Stress Rules, p. 4
an asterisk to the right.

Project syllable heads onto baseline.

Construct Stress Line 1 by building left-headed feet right-to-left.
Construct Stress Line 2 by making the word left-headed.

∗ Stress line 2
(∗ ∗ ∗ ∗) Stress line 1
(∗ ∗)(∗ ∗)(∗ ∗)(∗ ∗) Baseline
nuãku řuntuwöröwakka

∗ Stress Line 2 ∗ Stress Line 2

∗ ∗ Stress Line 1 (∗) Stress Line 1 (∗ ∗) Stress Line 1
(∗)(∗ ∗) Baseline → ∗ (∗ ∗) Baseline or (∗)(∗ ∗) Baseline
mlpapu mlpapu mlpapu

Note that when a constituent loses its head, it also loses its status as a constituent.

Line Conflation
Macedonian
South Slavic (Indo-European) language, the official language of the Republic of Macedonia. It has 2,113,170 speakers, 1,390,000 of
them in Macedonia.

(1) vodPničar ‘a miller’ (3) vodenič6rite ‘the millers’

(2) vodenHčari ‘millers’

The position of main stress is antepenultimate, which can be achieved with extrametricality for the final
syllable and left-headed feet. But the secondary stresses do not surface.

Project syllable heads onto baseline.

Final baseline element is extrametrical.
Construct Stress Line 1 by building left-headed feet right-to-left.
Construct Stress Line 2 by making the word right-headed.
Conflate lines 1 and 2.

∗ Stress line 2
( ∗) ∗ ∗) Stress line 1 ∗ Stress line 1
( ∗) (∗ ∗)(∗ ∗)<∗> Baseline → ∗ ∗ ∗(∗ ∗)<∗> Baseline
vo deni čari te vodeničari te
36602. PHONOLOGY Prof. Y. N. Falk

Stress Rules, p. 5
Quantity Sensitivity
Aklan
I. Western Austronesian
language with 395,000
(1) pit[ ‘seven’
speakers, spoken in the
(2) su [d ‘room’ Philippinesin Aklan
(3) but6ã ‘place’ province, at the northern
(4) bis6 ‘kiss’ end of Panay island.
(5) pRli [s ‘bathe’
(6) su U u [n ‘servant’
(7) atUbaã6n ‘genitals’

On the basis of these examples, we seem to have the following system:

I.
Project syllable heads onto baseline.
Construct Stress Line 1 by building right-headed feet right-to-left.
Construct Stress Line 2 by making the word right-headed.

II.
(1) bHtbSt ‘carry’ (4) asHrtRr ‘lucky’
(2) h6mbR ‘speak’ (5) mRpaãHsdR ‘go fishing (future)’
(3) 6stR ‘spend’ (6) mR ma 6ãhUd ‘more than 2 siblings’

NOTE: We ignore here the fact that the final syllable receives secondary stress rather than primary stress. We omit Stress Line 2.

A heavy syllable (syllable with a branching rime) must be the head of a foot. Note (5):

NOT: BUT RATHER:

∗ ∗ Stress line 1 ∗ ∗ ∗ Stress line 1
(∗ ∗ ) (∗ ∗) Baseline (∗) (∗ ∗) (∗) Baseline
mapaã isda map aãisda

Feet in Aklan are “quantity sensitive”. Formally, we can analyze this by assigning a line-1 asterisk
(“accent”) to heavy syllables before foot construction.

Stress line 1 → ∗ Stress line 1 →

∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ Baseline ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ Baseline
map a ãisda map a ãisda

∗ ∗ ∗ Stress line 1
(∗) (∗ ∗) (∗) Baseline
map aãisda
36602. PHONOLOGY Prof. Y. N. Falk

Stress Rules, p. 6
II.
Project syllable heads onto baseline.
Accent heavy syllables.
Construct Stress Line 1 by building right-headed feet right-to-left.
Construct Stress Line 2 by making the word right-headed.

Lexical Accents
more Aklan
III. Words with the morphemes ka and :a IV. Other cases
(1) na Rh6dlUk ‘will each tidy up’ (1) pHtU ‘whistle’
(2) inRp[stRn ‘wrap’ (2) s[ Ud ‘lice comb’
(3) nR RpRnab[n ‘go soaping’ (3) balHbRd ‘refuse’
(4) kR Rstah[nRn ‘expenditures’ (4) pilS r[sU ‘dangerous’

Some morphemes are marked in underlying representation with a Line-1 accent.

Unbounded feet
Selkup
(1) k ˙p
J ‘tiny’
(2) q9 k ˙t ˙ly ‘deaf’
(3) il ˙s
J m ˙t ‘we lived’
(4) üãã ˙nt ˙ ‘wolverine’
(5) q[mm ˙ ‘my friend’
(6) qummH ‘our friend’
(7) qumo qllJ ‘your two friends’ Samoyedic (Uralic) language spoken in western Siberia. It is spoken
(8) u c
J m ˙t ‘we work’ by 1640 out of a total ethnic population of 4249.

Project syllable heads onto baseline.

Accent long vowels.
Construct Stress Line 1 by building unbounded left-headed feet.
Construct Stress Line 2 by making the word right-headed.
Conflate lines 1 and 2.

Metrical grids before Line Conflation:

∗ Stress Line 2 ∗ Stress Line 2
(∗) Stress Line 1 (∗ ∗) Stress Line 1
(∗ ∗ ∗) Baseline ( ∗ ∗ )( ∗ ∗ ) Baseline
ü ãã ˙ nt ˙ i l ˙ s
m˙t
36602. PHONOLOGY Prof. Y. N. Falk

Stress Rules, p. 7
∗ Stress Line 2
(∗ ∗ ∗ ) Stress Line 1
( ∗ )( ∗ ∗ )( ∗ ) Baseline
q u mo q  l 
l

Additional issues
• It has been claimed that some languages have ternary feet.
• Some languages appear to disallow degenerate feet.