Phonological Theories

Session 5

Prosodic Description in Linear and Non-linear Generative Phonology

Version SS 2006

Prosodic description in „linear“ and „non-linear“ phonology

The Terms „linear“ and „non-linear“ were used for the segmental level of sound-structure description.

The „non-linear“ is is expressed in the different levels of the tree- structures while the „linear“ segment string has no relation to any other level and each sound is an unstructured collection of features.

Considering prosodic structuring to be a) the grouping of sound units into larger units (this can seen from the opposite side, i.e. separating groups of units from one another and be termed „demarcation“),b) the weighting of the units within the groups („stress“ or „accent“)c) the allocation of a communicative function to the larger units by means of melodic modulation („intonation“)we can compare the SPE approach to prosody with later (AM) approaches.

Prosodic Categories in SPE

• The only phonologically treated prosodic category was stress(in a general sense of abstract weighting).

• However it was dependent for the specification of degree of stress on the morpho-syntactic demarcation structure of the sentence.

- lexical formatives and grammatical morphemes (including articles, prepositions, which are considered to be clitics) are separated by a + boundary;

- together, these form word units (problem: pronouns!)

- word units are bounded by # (also elements of compounds)

• All boundaries correspond to nodes on the syntactic tree, which are also represented in the bracketed representation .

Structural basis of stress allocation

• Ich arbeite in der Eisenbahndirektion.

S

NP VP

N V PP

(proform) (stem) (pers./tense) prep NP

Ich arbeit + e in + art N der + Eisenbahndirektion

• ((Ich) ((arbeit(+e)) (in+(der+(((Eisen)(bahn))(direkt+ion))))))

Practice in stress allocation

• Draw the NP-trees, derive the bracketing and determine the stresspattern of the following words (phrases):

Wettervorhersage

Landesuniversitätsgesetz

Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitän

Mädchenhandelsschule und Mädchenhandelsschule

baseball bat; Kensington High Street; Tottenham Court Road

Problems with cyclical stress allocation

• This is the cat that killed the rat that stole the cheese. (SPE p. 372)

• The prosodic phrasing for the sentence is: 2 1 2 1 2 1

(This is the cat) (that killed the rat) (that stole the cheese).

• The stress allocation for the sentence derived from the linear syntactic structure might be: 2 3 2 4 3 1

(This is)NP(the cat that killedNP(the rat that stole NP(the cheese)NP)NP)NP

• Creating rules for inserting prosodic phrase boundaries into the linear syntactic string can‘t work because the prosodic structure (although not unconnected to syntactic constituents) cannot be derived from the syntactic structure.

The “Strict Layer Hypothesis”

• The sort of recursive hierarchy that is seen in syntactic structures like: This is the cat that killed the rat that stole the cheese.

are ruled out in prosody.

• A hierarchical structure has been postulated in post-linear phonologyin which one or more lower order units are exhaustively contained within the bounds of the next higher unit and are co-extensive with them

• A second aspect of the prosodic structure is its relative indepen-dence of syntactic structure. This is not the same as saying that there is no link between them. The claim is that syntactic information can only be accessed indirectly and it is mediated by the phonological constituent structure.

• Any violations of the “SLH” and of the claim of morpho-syntactic independence can be shown to result from phonological adjustments made in the lexicon.

The “SLH” layers

• An utterance (U) can contain several intonation phrases (IPs), which can contain several phonological phrases (s), which can contain several phonological words ()

( ) U

( )( ) IP

( )( )( )( )( ) ( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )

• Violation of SLH would be if ….. a was not dominated by a or was dominated by 2 sViolation types can be classified as a) non-exhaustivity, b) improperbracketing and c) recursivity.

a) ( )3 b) ( )3 c) ( )2 ( )( )2 ( )1

( x )( )1 ( )( x y )( )1 ( )(x )1

Some practice (or problems?)

• How are the following utterance divided into prosodic units (U, IP, , , F, ) according to the SLH?

- When my grandmother was younger, she was quite a daredevil.- All over the world, people are asking the reason why.

- Es hat selten einen Menschen gegeben, der niemals unter seinem geissen gelitten hat.

- Kaum hat sie die Tür zugemacht, stürmte es heftiger, als sie es jemals erlebt hatte.