Research: Tone/Sonority-prosody interaction
A lot of work on word stress focuses on edges, weight, and rhythm. However, a small body of work has looked at other influences on stress including structural elements (e.g. onsets, codas, and so on), tone, and sonority levels. My interest in both tone-/sonority-driven stress has generally not been for its own sake, but rather for the insight it gives into the formal expression of markedness.
My work on sub-syllabic structural influences on word stress and feet started in Prosodic Categorization, my MA thesis, which argues that there are is a family of structural constraints that accounts for prosody. Markedness in prominent positions (2001) discusses it as a side-effect of constraints on sonority and prominent positions like 'onset' and 'main-stressed syllable'. In work with Patrik Bye (Metrical influences on fortition and lenition,2008), we argued that there are size restrictions specifically on the heads of PrWds (as opposed to foot heads). We also argued that other conditions on codas could influence stress placement.
Most of my work has been on how tone and sonority influence foot form and position. There's an overview in my chapter in the Cambridge Handbook of Phonology (2007).
Tone and prominence (1999) and The interaction of tone and stress in Optimality Theory (2002) argued that there is a special affinity between higher tone and foot heads, and between lower tone and non-foot heads. The formal implementation involved sets of negatively formulated constraints in a universally fixed ranking (e.g. *Hd/L >> *Hd/M >> *Hd/H). The notion of 'head' and 'non-head' was expressed in more detail as Designated Terminal Element (DTE) and non-DTE in the formal expression of markedness (2002). Fixed rankings were rejected in favor of stringent constraints inThe formal expression of markedness (2002) and Markedness and conflation in OT (2004).
I have written more on sonority-driven stress than on tone-driven stress, initially inspired by Michael Kenstowicz' ROA article (ROA#33). Major case studies include Nganasan (2004), Kiriwina (2002, 2004), Gujarati (2002,2006:ch.7.4), Takia (2007), and Harar Oromo (2002).
Constraints that regulate the relationship between tone/sonority and prosodic structure don't just cause stress shift; they provoke other responses that have often been more well documented. A well-known example is vowel reduction, as argued by Crosswhite in her doctoral dissertation. I discuss vowel reduction in Markedness ch.7, differing from Crosswhite in arguing that constraints on sonority and prosodic structure are completely sufficient in accounting for all vowel reduction patterns; there is no need for constraints that provoke vowel 'dispersion'.
At the moment, my students Shu-hao Shih and Vartan Haghverdi are working on sonority-driven stress. They are trying to identify the realization of metrical heads in Gujarati and Armenian to see if there's any non-impressionistic evidence for traditional descriptions of stress placement.
References
de Lacy, Paul and Patrik Bye (2008). Metrical influences on lenition and fortition. In Joaquim de Carvalho, Tobias Scheer, and Philippe Ségéral (eds.) Lenition and Fortition. Studies in Generative Grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 173-206.
[abstract] [chapter]
• Argues for constraints specifically on PrWd heads to motivate stress attraction and fortition.
de Lacy, Paul (2007). The interaction of tone, sonority, and prosodic structure. In Paul de Lacy (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ch.12 (pp. 281-307).
• An overview of recent work on tone-, sonority-, and constituent-driven stress.
de Lacy, Paul (2006). Markedness: Reduction and Preservation in Phonology. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 112. Cambridge University Press.
[abstract] [Google books excerpt] [corrections] [handout] [talk]
• Ch.7 examines the influence of sonority-foot constraints on vowel reduction and stress placement. Provides a detailed analysis of Gujarati sonority-driven stress.
de Lacy, Paul (2004). Markedness conflation in Optimality Theory. Phonology 21.2:145-199. [Abstract] [Article]
• Provides detailed analyses of two sonority-driven stress systems (Nganasan, Kiriwina). Argues that distinctions between markedness categories can be ignored in specific languages.
de Lacy, Paul (2002). The formal expression of markedness. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst. ROA 542.
• Analyses of a variety of sonority-driven stress systems (chs.3,4).
de Lacy, Paul (2002). The interaction of tone and stress in Optimality Theory. Phonology 19.1: 1-32. [Abstract] [Article]
• Proposes a tone markedness hierarchy, and its relation to prosodic structure. Aims to account for tone-driven stress and stress-driven tone placement.
de Lacy, Paul (2001). Markedness in prominent positions. In Ora Matushansky, Albert Costa, Javier Martin-Gonzalez, Lance Nathan, and Adam Szczegielniak (eds.) HUMIT 2000, MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 40. Cambridge, MA: MITWPL, pp.53-66. ROA 432.
• Proposes a theory that accounts for restrictions imposed on prominent positions, such as onsets and stressed syllables. Argues that these restrictions can cause stress-sensitivity to onsets and sonority in onsets.
de Lacy, Paul (1999). Tone and prominence, ROA 333.
• A precursor to the (2002) article; also contains discussion of stress-driven tone patterns in Nguni languages.
de Lacy, Paul (1997). Prosodic categorization. MA Thesis, University of Auckland. ROA 236.
• Proposes a theory of constraints on subsyllabic constituents and foot form.