published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Philosophy

Cross-linguistically, the notion 'minimal word' has proved fruitful grounds for explanatory accounts of requirements imposed on morphological and phonological constituents. Word minimality requires that a lexical word includes the main-stressed foot of the language. As a result, subminimal words are augmented to a bimoraic foot through diverse strategies like vowel lengthening, syllable addition, etc. Even languages with numerous monomoraic lexical words may impose a minimality requirement on derived words that would otherwise be smaller than a well-formed foot. In addition, the minimal word has been argued to play a central role in characterizing a prosodic base within some morpho-prosodic constituent for the application of processes such as reduplication and infixation. / The goal of this thesis is to offer an explanation as to why and in which contexts grammars may prefer a prosodic constituent which may not be reducible to a bimoraic foot. I provide explanatory accounts for a number of cases where the prosodic structure of morphological or phonological constituents cannot be defined as coextensive with the main stressed foot of the language. To this end, I propose to add to the theory of Prosodic Structure (Chen 1987; Selkirk 1984, 1986, 1989, 1995; Selkirk and Shen 1990) within an optimality-theoretic framework by providing evidence for a new level within the Prosodic Hierarchy, that of the Prosodic Stem (PrStem). / An important aspect of the model of prosodic structure proposed here is a notion of headship which follows directly from the Prosodic Hierarchy itself and from the metrical grouping of prosodic constituents. A theory of prosodic heads is developed which assumes that structural constraints can impose well-formedness requirements on the prosodic shape and the distribution of heads within morphological and phonological constituents.

Building on earlier work, notably Kager (1993, 1995) and framed in Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993), this thesis presents a theory of foot structure in which the asymmetric maximal expansions of iambic and trochaic feet (cf. the Iambic/Trochaic Law: 1TL, e.g. Hayes 1995) are accounted for by a single constraint, HEAD GOVERNMENT (Mellander 2001c, 2002b). The present analysis devotes special attention to a class of quantitative processes in trochaic systems which generate uneven (HL) trochaic feet. In contrast to previous analyses (e.g. Hayes 1995), such processes are shown to be of phonological rather than phonetic nature in certain languages, and the ramifications of this conclusion are explored with regard to a variety of issues in prosodic theory. / The evidence for the phonological status of (HL)-creating processes comes from published data on Mohawk, Selayarese, Gidabal, and Oromo, as well as original field data from Central Slovak. Following Piggott (1998, 2001) and Mellander (2001a, c, 2002b), these processes are seen to follow from H EAD PROMINENCE, a constraint which requires greater relative intrinsic prominence in the head of a prosodic constituent. Since HEAD PROMINENCE is sensitive to intrinsic prominence, its effects are shown to hold irrespective of derived prominence resulting from the application of stress rules. H EAD PROMINENCE is also shown to play a central role in accounting for diphthongal quantity-prominence relations, where cross-linguistic patterns of long vowel diphthongization in bimoraic syllables mirror those of (HL)-creating processes in disyllabic feet. / In contrast to previous work on HEAD GOVERNMENT (Mellander 2001c, 2002b), the absence of languages which require violations of this constraint implies that it is universally undominated, contra the standard Optimality Theoretic assumption of universal constraint violability. This view is also supported by the analysis of ternary stress systems, where the absence of unattested quaternary and quinternary systems relies crucially on the inviolability of HEAD G OVERNMENT. / A final aspect of this thesis is the development of a preliminary model to explain asymmetries in structure and markedness between iambic and trochaic systems, including distributional asymmetries, Iambic Lengthening, and the ITL. Based on work by Van de Vijver (1998) this approach abandons traditional symmetric notions of iambicity and trochaicity in favour of an asymmetric pair of constraints---PEAK-FIRST and *E DGEMOST. Iambic/trochaic asymmetries consequently emerge as artefacts of constraint interaction and require no additional theoretical machinery.

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Thesis (doctoral)--Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht, 1979. / Summary in Dutch. Includes bibliographical references (p. 161-167).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xxiv, 297 p. ; also includes graphics. Includes bibliographical references (p. 289-297).

Thesis (doctoral)--Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht, 1979. / Summary in Dutch. Bibliography: p. 161-167.

This paper focuses on the prosody of spontaneous speech in specific field - service-oriented speech and non-service-oriented speech. It investigates the prosodic features of "service attitude utterances" and "neutral attitude utterances" in Mandarin Chinese. As study of spontaneous speech, the corpus is collected from service workplaces and two participated are included. Based on adjusted definition of prosody and intonation, this research examines the prosody factors of pitch range, mean pitch, tempo and involving accent of phrase. The research problem of this paper is to investigate prosodic patterns of service attitude utterances and neutral attitude utterances. The study defines the attitudes of "service attitude" to contrast with "neutral attitude", and classifies utterances according to prosodic structures into two types. Contrastive analyses include prosodic features of different attitudes speeches as well as of different prosodic structures. The conclusion of this study is pitch range and pitch scale both contributes to the expression of service attitude and they are not exclusive. Widening the pitch range and enlarging the pitch scale are realizations of service attitude utterances. Tempo and the accent of prosodic phrase show little relation to service attitude speech. 本文研究具體的語言場所一服務業和非服務業的自然話語的韻律特徵，考察漢語中“服務態度”和“中性態度”的韻律特點。作為自然話語研究，本文實驗的語料來自兩位發音人的其實工作場所。為了研究需要，本文重新定義了韻律和語調的關條，在此基礎上考察音域，平均基頻值，語速，以及韻律短語重音等韻律因素。 本文的研究問題是考察“服務態度”和“中性態度”兩種話語中的韻律特徵。為此，本文定義了自然話語中的“服務態度”和“中性態度”，並且將話語按照韻律結構分為兩組。文章涵蓋了兩種態度話語的韻律特徵對此，以及不同韻律結構問話語特徵的對比分析。 最終， 研究得出結論， 話語的音城和音階都有助於表達“服務態度”，兩者並不衝突，擴大音域和提高音階實現是“服務態度”表達的方式。同時發現，語速和韻律短語重音對表達“服務態度”沒有直接影響。

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