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Unified representations for stress and the syllable

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2005

Tobias Scheer  and
Péter Szigetvári
Tobias Scheer
Affiliation:
CNRS 6039, University of Nice
Péter Szigetvári
Affiliation:
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
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Abstract

We argue that there is no need to split phonological representations into two worlds: one syllabic and another in which word stress is calculated. We show that both syllable- and stress-related phenomena can be accounted for with a single set of representations, if traditional syllabic analysis is modified in one central respect: what is traditionally taken to be a coda–onset cluster is interpreted as two independent onsets enclosing an empty nucleus. Accordingly, our proposal may be understood as a development of the idea that underlies classical metrical grids, i.e. that stress-relevant units project to higher levels and are therefore visible for stress. The units in the proposal made here, however, are uniformly nuclei. Contentful nuclei are always projected, while their empty counterparts (i.e. codas in traditional approaches) may or may not be. The weightlessness of onsets directly follows from this approach.

Type
Research Article
Information
Phonology , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , May 2005 , pp. 37 - 75
Copyright
2005 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

We wish to thank four anonymous reviewers and the associate editor for their valuable comments, which have greatly improved the quality of this article, a first sketch of which was presented at the 10th Manchester Phonology Meeting. A less developed version appears in Scheer (2004: §501).