Morpho-phonological ‘controversy’. On “visibility” of morphological information in English word stress. |
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Tomasz Ciszewski (Gdañsk) |
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The idiosyncratic stress behaviour of
morphologically complex items in English was usually linked in the literature
(Fudge 1984, Lieberman & Prince1977) with special accentual properties of
particular morphemes, described by complicated derivational “repair” mechanisms
(SPE, Halle & Vergnaud 1987), or certain ‘unruly’ suffixes were labelled
‘extrametrical’. (Hayes 1995)
Ideally,
simple morphological domains should carry over their accentual potentials onto
morphologically complex domains, a situation that would guarantee a perfect
stress preservation within independently stressable domains. Such a
morpho-phonological alignment, however, offers no universally valid
generalisations concerning the nature of a “phonological word” in English:
1. controversy |
2. PHOTO- |
3. PHONO- |
4. ANTI- |
a. "contro®v[ä]sy |
a. * ®photo"graphy |
a. * ®phono"logy |
a. * ®anti"logy |
b. con"trov[«]sy |
b. "photo®graph |
b. ®phono"logical |
b. an"tilogy |
c. * con"troversial |
c. pho"tographer |
c. pho"nology |
c. * an"tibody |
d. ®contro"v[ä]sial |
d. ®photo"graphic |
d. "phono®typy |
d. "anti®body |
5. –METER |
6. –BODY |
8. MIXED |
9. –VALENT |
a. "kil[«U]®m[I]ter |
a. "someb[«]dy |
a. "sentim[«]nt |
a. am"biv[«]lent |
b. ki"l[]m[I]ter |
b. "some®b[]dy |
b. ®senti"m[e]ntal |
b. ®ambi"v[eI]lent |
c. ®milli"meter |
7. –MAN |
c. ®sentim[e]n"tality |
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d. * mi"limeter |
a. "super®m[Ï]n |
d. ®sentim[«]n"tality |
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e. * "thermo ®meter |
b. "postm[«]n |
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f. ther"mometer |
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Evidently, morphological complexity is not
responsible for phonologically different behaviour of morphologically identical
domains. Past accounts (Kaye 1995) attributed the inconsistencies to analytic
(5c,d) vs. (5e,f) non-analytic structure of a compound, admitting to a fair
amount of lexical arbitrariness, as in (5a,b).
The apparent irregularities above receive a non-arbitrary treatment within the framework of metrical phonology, whose central idea is the organisation of metrical material (syllables or moras) into metrical feet, subject to the principles of metrical well-formedness and exhaustiveness. (e.g. Burzio 1994)
The
metrical foot, viewed as a type of a governing domain, consists of the head-rhyme
(stressed) and the complement-rhyme(s) (unstressed). In English, the head
position is licensed by: (a) weight (heavy syllable head, e.g. HL)
or (b) position (left edge of the “stress window”, in the absence of a
penultimate heavy syllable, e.g. LLL). Note the ill-formedness of
the foot (LHL) (*‘veranda), where a
less complex rhyme (Light) would dominate a more complex one (Heavy).
If the presence of a morphological boundary
should be respected by metrical structure, there would be little justification
for the forms in (1b), (2c), (3c), (4b), (5b), (5f), (8a), (9a) since each of the component morphemes is an
independently attested word or foot. Similarly, the incorrectness of the forms
in (2a), (3a), (4a), (5e) seems inexplicable. Additionally, vowel reductions in
the head position of rightmost domain prevent the creation of ill-formed feet
*(LHL), as in (1b) - versy,
(5b) -meter, (8b) –valent and render morphological
information irrelevant.
The accentual discrepancies between morphologically similar compounds (4b vs. 4d) or (5c vs. 5f) may, hypothetically, be due to a different lexical frequency of the forms.
Existent ‘free-variation’ stress patterns, like
(1a,b), (5a,b) suggest that morphological information may be visible to
phonology of stress if it independently respects metrical requirements, yet the
forms preferred in RP English seem to be those in which morphology was
‘erased’.
The inconsistent metrical behaviour of the word
‘controversy’ can be then summarized as follows. In the form (1a) ["knt¨«®väÉsi] morphological domains are naturally respected
as they correspond to independently well-formed feet: "contro- (HL)# and -"v[ä]sy (HL)#, therefore
there is no need for melodic re-adjustments. In (1b) [k«n"t¨v«si], however, morphological boundaries
are ‘overridden’ in the parsing process, which applies to create a maximal foot
within the confines of the tri-syllabic stress window. As a result, the
structure: *con’trov[ä]sy *H(LHL) appears, which
does require a melodic re-adjustment , i.e. the vowel shortening:
[ä]
> [« ] to guarantee the well-formed
metrical structure con’trov[«]sy H(LLL)
The scale of re-adjustments, both metrical and
melodic (vowel reduction) in the form con’troversy seems to justify,
still a hypothetical claim, that the metrical structure is built independently
of morphological structure. If so, the phonology of word stress in English
renders morphology invisible. In cases when morphological structure would
require no metrical changes (‘contro,versy), variant
pronunciations exist. Bearing in mind that analytic morphology may be
diachronically lost (e.g. cup + board = ["k¿b«d]), in time only the morphologically “blind”
forms will remain. With higher frequency words it is already the case. (ther"mometer vs. "alti,meter)
Morphology-Phonology
interaction in relation to English word stress is, therefore, a game whose
rules are imposed by phonological (metrical) licensing and metrical
constituency, respecting morphological information only where it is, coincidentally,
possible.
REFERENCES
Burzio, Luigi (1994) Principles of English stress. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fudge, Erik C. (1984) English Word Stress. London: Allen and Unwin.
Hayes, Bruce (1995) Metrical stress theory: principles and case studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Kaye, Johnatan (1995) Derivations and interfaces. In: Durand, Jacques & Francis Katamba (eds.), 289-332 Frontiers of Phonology. Longman: Harlow.
Lieberman, Mark and Allan S. Prince (1977) On stress and linguistic rhythm. Linguistic Inquiry 8: 249-336