The results of the corpus survey in chapter 3 revealed that there was a pitch accent on (almost) every content word in EA. This section seeks to establish on empirical grounds w hether that generalisation - ‘an accent on every content w ord’ - can be reform ulated as ‘an accent on every Prosodic W ord’.
The previous section set out empirical and theoretical evidence to suggest that the domain of pitch accent distribution in EA is not a phrase-level constituent (neither M aP nor M iP), since these constituents are shown consistently to be composed of more than one PW d. The most likely rem aining candidate is therefore the next level down in the Prosodic Hierarchy: the Prosodic W ord (PWd).
This section therefore explores the treatm ent of function words in EA in order to determ ine whether the distribution o f pitch accents in EA is defined over a
morphosyntactic category (content words) or a prosodic category (Prosodic W ord). The null hypothesis, following the hypothesis that phonological processes may refer directly only to prosodic categories108, is that the correct generalisation in EA is indeed
definable in terms o f a prosodic category, that is, the Prosodic Word. The way in which function words are treated should help clarify if this is the correct generalisation for EA.
5.4.1 Treatm ent o f function w ords in the corpus.
Function words in the dataset fall into three groups: i) function words which are always unaccented, ii) function words which are usually unaccented, and, iii) function words which are usually accented. A sum m ary list is provided in the table in (5.47) below.
1US This assumption has been termed the Indirect Reference H ypothesis (Selkirk 1986, Inkelas & Zee 1990, Truckenbrodt 1999).
(5.47) Treatment o f function words in the corpus
a. always unaccented b. usually unaccented (varies) c. usually accented
[il] the [min] from [?inn-uh] that-it (comp.)
[9ala] on/at [?inn-ak] that-you (comp.)
[fi] in
[bi] with/by [fii] there is [9alasaan] in order to
[ma] [...] as [mis] not [lissa] just/soon
[wala] or
[ya] vocative [bass] only [9alayya] on/at me
[maa] negative [9alayk] on/at you
[illi] that (rel. pron.) [9alayh] on/at him
[law] if [?inna] that (comp.)
[?aw] or [da] that (deictic) m.
[wa] and [di] that (deictic) f.
[la?] no [?awya] yes [Gayr] except [9asaan] in order to [bayn] between [taHt] under [ba9d] after [bitaa9] belonging to (s.) [bitu9] belonging to (pi.) [?ana] I
[?inta] you (m) [?iHna] we [huwwa] he [hiyya] she
[kaan] he was (aux. vb.) [kaanit] she was (aux. vb.) [kunt] I was (aux. vb.)
5.4.1.1 Function words which are always unaccented.
Function words which are never accented include the definite article [il] ‘th e’, the prepositions [bi] ‘with/by’ and [fi] ‘in ’, and the conjunctive particle [ma] ‘as’ which renders a preposition into an adverbial conjunction, as in the phrase [ba9d m a X] ‘after X ’ (where X is a clause)109. Also unaccented are the vocative particle [ya] (eg [ya guHa]
‘hey G uha!’) and the negative particle [ma] ‘not’ (the first part o f the discontinuous negative circum fix [ma + s]), and also connectives [wa] ‘and’, [law] ‘i f and [?aw] ‘o r’.
10'J S a lib ( 1 9 8 1 : 3 1 1)
Some of the function words which are always unaccented are indeed listed by W atson (2002:93) as Tmstressable m orphem es’, including [il] ‘the’ and [wa] ‘and’. M itchell (1990:127-8) sim ilarly notes that there are particles which are not them selves stressed but which are usually treated as part of the following noun or verb w ithout affecting accent, and that these include prepositions [bi] ‘w ith/by’, [fi] ‘in’ and the clausal com plem entizer [?an] ‘to ’.
There is how ever a property that all of the function words which are never accented share, which is that they are prosodically subminimal. The minimal word in EA is obligatorily bimoraic, in order to form a stress foot which in EA is a moraic trochee (Broselow 1976, Hayes 1995, W atson 2002, for word minimality in general see M cCarthy & Prince 1995, Downing 2006). In addition in EA consonant extram etricality applies, so that in a monosyllable a singleton coda does not render the syllable heavy (Hayes 1995, W atson 2002).
There are no surface violations of minimality whatsoever in E A n0, such that subminimal cognate words in other dialects, as also subminimal loanwords, are invariably prosodically enhanced in EA, via gemination, vowel lengthening or epenthesis. For example, whereas other spoken dialects tolerate subminimal words o f Classical Arabic origin such as /?ab/ ‘father’ and /?ax/ ‘brother’, in EA these words are expanded when pronounced in isolation by gemination: [?abb], [?axx]. Sim ilar repair processes apply to commonly used subminimal function words, so that /kam / ‘how m any?’ emerges in EA as [kaam], /m an/ ‘w ho?’ as [mini], and /m a9/ ‘w ith’ as [ma9a] (W atson 2002:88-9 ) i n .
All of the function words in the corpus which are invariably unaccented are subminimal words, and so arguably are not PW ds.
5.4.1.2 Function words which are usually unaccented.
Function words which are unaccented in most cases but not all and which are also subminimal include the preposition [min] ‘from ’, the deictics ([da]/[di] ‘th at’ m./f.) and
110 Hayes (1 9 95:87) termed this an absolute ban on ‘degenerate feet’.
111 In theory such repairs processes could apply to som e o f the function words listed in (5 .47a) above ([ya] could lengthen to [yaa] for exam ple), how ever no such exam ples w ere observed in the present cotpus.
the negation particle [mis] “not” (the stand-alone merged continuous form o f the discontinuous negative circumfix [ma + s]).
There are no obvious properties to link the contexts in which these words appear accented. In som e cases the context may be slightly more emphatic, particularly in the case of the negation particle and the deictics. It seems that the ‘default’ status of these words is that they are unaccented, but they can on occasion be ‘prom oted’ to accent status, if the speaker wishes. In the case of the preposition [min] ‘from ’, this is only accented when it forms a stress foot by cliticisation to adjacent segm ental material, as for example when there is a pitch accent on [min] when followed by the definite article in certain cases; for example, in the sentence in (5.48) (from the align corpus), the sequence [min-is] ‘from the’112, was accented in 4 out of 18 tokens.
(5.48)
H a S a lit 9 a Ia -m in H a m in -is sifa a ra 9 a la -sa a n tiruuH tid r is fi ?am riika
o b ta in e d at-g ra n i fro m -th e e m b a s s y in -o r d e r s h e - g o e s s h e - s tu d ie s in A m e r ic a
‘S h e g o t a g r a n t f r o m t h e e m b a s s y to g o a n d s t u d y in A m e r i c a . ’
Function words which are prosodically of sufficient size to form a stress foot and thus are inherently stressable, but are nonetheless usually unaccented, include the ‘pseudo verb’ [fii] ‘there is’, the com plem entizer [?inna] ‘that’, the relative pronoun [?illi] ‘that’, all forms of the auxiliary verb [kaan] ‘to b e ’ and all pronouns. Sim ilarly prepositions which are prosodically large enough and yet are usually unaccented include: [Gayr] ‘except’, [bayn] ‘betw een’, [9asaan] ‘in order to ’, [taHt] ‘under’ and [9ala] ‘on/at’.
5.4.1.3 Function words which are usually accented.
Function words which are usually accented include inflected forms o f com plem entizers and prepositions such as [?inn-uh] ‘that-he’ and [?inn-ak] ‘that-you’, as well as [9alayya] ‘at m e’, [9alayk] ‘at you’ and [9alayh] ‘at him ’. These are all o f sufficient prosodic size to form fully stressable words. The additional property that these words share however is that they also incorporate pronominalised arguments to the verb, which may m ake them more prone to bearing an accent. This matches the observation by Mitchell (1990:127-8) that inflected particles are regularly accented.
112 The [1] o f the definite article [il] assim ilates com pletely to a follow ing word-initial coronal consonant in EA (W atson 2 002).
Sim ilarly the prepositional phrase [9ala saan] ‘in order to ’ is routinely accented on the word [saan] ‘cause/condition’, in contrast to its lexically equivalent abbreviated counterpart [9asaan] ‘in order to ’, which is usually (though not always) unaccented. This suggests that [9ala saan] is indeed analysed by speakers as a full prepositional phrase com prising the preposition [9ala] plus the lexical word [saan], whereas the foreshortened version [9asaan] is analysed by speakers as a function word.
5.4.1.4 Sum m ary: accentuation of function words in the corpus
In summary therefore, function words in EA which are never accented are all
prosodically subm inim al, but even potentially stressable polym oraic function words are usually unaccented in neutral contexts. Those function words which are usually accented are not only polymoraic but also inflected and thus arguably incorporate a lexical head.
(5.49) Accentuation of function words in EA: summary
accented if subminimal accented if bim oraic
uninflected function words X * optionally ‘prom otable’
inflected function words X
lexical (content) words ✓ ✓
5.4.2 T he prosodic realisation of function words
Selkirk (1996) offers an analysis of the prosodic realisation of weak monosyllabic function words in English, which alternate between strong forms, containing full stressed vowels, and weak forms, containing reduced unstressed vowels. She argues on empirical grounds that the correct analysis o f English non-phrase-final weak
monosyllabic function words in English is as free clitics and offers a constraint-based analysis.
A key claim that Selkirk wants to make is that interface constraints between
m orphosyntactic and prosodic structure m ake no reference at all to functional categories in m orphosyntax, but only to lexical categories (Selkirk 1996:191). The relevant alignm ent constraints at the word level are thus of two kinds only, governing alignm ent of lexical word edges to PW d edges, and of PW d edges to lexical word e d g e s '13:
113 The interface constraints take the form o f alignm ent constraints (M cCarthy & Prince 1993).
(5.50) word alignment: Align(Lex,L; PWd,L) or Align(Lex,R; P Wd,R)
PWd alignment: Align(PWd,L; Lex,L) or Align(PWd,R; LEX,R)
If both Align (PWd,R; Lex,R) and Align(PWd,L; Lex,L) are respected no function word will ever be mapped to a PW d in output representation. As Selkirk points out: “the
[PWd:LexWd] constraints form part of the explanation for the fact that function words typically do not have the status o f PW d” (Selkirk 1996:192). For practical purposes in the current discussion each left/right edge sensitive pair o f constraints (Align(Lex,L; PWd,L) and ALIGN(LEX,R; PWd,R)) will be conflated into a single constraint:
(5.51) LexWd:PWd A lexical word maps to a P W d114.
PWD:LexWd A PWd maps to a lexical word.
Surface counterexam ples to either o f these constraints are an indication of minimal violation of the constraint. Selkirk proposes four possible prosodic structures for function words, each o f which minimally violates either one or more interface
constraints or one of the prosodic domination constraints that make up the Strict Layer Hypothesis (for formal definitions see chapter 2 section 2.2.2). These structures are illustrated in (5.52) below.
A structure in which a function word maps to a full PW d violates He a d e d n e s s since an
unstressed function word (which in English must be analysed as an unfooted syllable) is dominated directly by a PW d. The structure for function words as free clitics violates