Rhythm comes first: A scenario for the structuring of phonology in the Beats-and-Binding framework |
|
Katarzyna
Dziubalska-Kołaczyk (Poznań) |
The
scenario which I want to propose does not aspire to solve the eternal
"chicken or egg" problem in the ontogeny of speech. I assume the
problem to be unresolvable and, moreover, to be largely irrelevant to the
discussion of a probable synchronic scenario of structure creation in
phonology. Also interpretations of diachrony are immune to the "question
of origin", since both A®B
and B®A changes are observable, and the best one can do is to state the
preferred direction. Within so sketched orientation the claim will be made that
rhythmic preferences form the skeleton for phonological structures. This is
well evidenced both in first language acquisition with a foot as the first unit
acquired and in other areas of external evidence, for instance in aphasia or
phonostylistics with rhythmicization towards a simple trochaic foot.
Foot-timing is a default unmarked rhythm. Typologically, languages diverge from
the default either in the direction of prototypical stress-timing or in the
direction of prototypical beat-timing. Four basic language types with
respect to timing can be arrived at: prototypical beat-timing (PBT), non-prototypical
beat-timing (NPBT), non-prototypical stress-timing (NPST) and prototypical
stress-timing (PST). Each type will be characterised with reference to eleven
features predicted to be exponents and/or denominators of a particular rhythmic
type. The relevant principles and units of Beats-and-Binding Phonology will be
introduced as a necessary background for the enunciation of the rhythmic scenario.