Sections 2.4. to 2.4.1.4. above should suffice to show the difference between stop length at morpheme boundaries in Nakkara and morpheme-medial geminate clusters. The former is a morphophonemic process, triggered by boundaries between certain morphological constituents. This long stop allophone is represented by double stop symbols in the orthography. This can, however give the wrong impression of its phonetic status. To clarify this point, note that phonetically, we place a syllable boundary between the two stop symbols, but phonologic ally the prefix remains vowel-final. (See 2.7.1. for examples and clarification of this point.)
A distinction is maintained between a geminate cluster on the one hand and two different environments for occurrence of long stop allophones on the other. A true geminate cluster occurs only in morpheme-medial position, is not predictable and is represented orthographically by double stop symbols. A long stop allophone occurs in a number of environments: in syllable-final position (where it is totally predictable and therefore not represented orthographically) and also, as above, in word-medial position at the boundary of prefix and root where, in spite of allophonic status, the orthographic representation is double stop symbols, in preference to using some orthographic convention to mark particular morpheme boundaries.
2.5. Stress
In Nakkara, stress is not contrastive, and therefore not phonemic. Nevertheless there are interesting patterns of stress in the language for which it will be necessary to formulate rules of stress placement in this analysis.
In simple word-forms, the domain of stress in Nakkara is not the word as such but the morpheme, usually the root morpheme. It makes sense in a language with such a vast array of prefixes, to distinguish the root of a word with primary stress placement. Verbal and nominal prefixes and suffixes, although morphemes in their own right are not assigned primary stress. (Monosyllabic verb-complexes are somewhat of an exception in this regard. See discussion in 6.2.)
Morphemes are made up of anything from one to seven syllables in data collected so far. Word-forms collected have up to thirteen syllables, consisting of one or more root morphemes plus various affixes. For most words, including morphologically complex words that have just one root morpheme, it is normal for primary stress to be assigned to the first syllable of the root morpheme, and accompanying primary stress is noticeable lengthening of the vowel. This generalisation of primary stress assignment applies to over 95% of the data.
Secondary stress normally falls on the penultimate syllable and then on alternating syllables preceding the penultimate (i.e. in a right-to-left direction), but does not occur on the syllable immediately following the one that is assigned primary stress.
Cases where there is more than one root morpheme per word (such as compound nominals) are particularly interesting with regard to stress placement. Each root in the compound is assigned stress on the first syllable, according to standard stress patterns, but just one of the roots ends up with prominent primary stress. Assignment of stress in
compound nominals is discussed in more detail in 2.5.2. below. 2.5.1. Stress Rules
Stress rules explaining patterns of stress assignment in Nakkara can be appropriately formulated by using principles established in theories of metrical stress as introduced in Liberman and Prince (1977) and elaborated as part of autosegmental phonology in Halle and Clements (1983) and Clements and Keyser (1983).
The principles of metrical stress establish a direct relationship between individual syllable sequences and tree-like structures. A stronger syllable (i.e. the syllable head) is indicated by a star on the branch dominating that syllable. Aligned with this structure is a metrical grid composed of a sequence of slots, one for each syllable. This allows for an asterisk to be placed in the slot of the syllable head. In this way stress patterns can be represented in the structure and read off according to the number and placement of asterisks in the metrical grid.
The following three stress rules will be necessary in Nakkara. Each rule is illustrated with the relevant construction on the morphologically complex word gcjbanamarb:awab:aljeba 'my (two) wives':
(1) Over the syllables of a word construct the first level of feet as left-headed binary trees in the following order:
(a) over the first two syllables of the root morpheme,
(b) then from the margins inwards; (i.e. over the penultimate two syllables and proceeding towards the centre, and over the first two syllables of any prefix sequence.)
(Note that syllabic consonants, which occur word-initially (see 2.7.2.1.), are extrametrical.)
Rule 1 gives the following construction for the example chosen where the root morpheme is indicated by 'M' and other constituent morphemes by'm':
gabamamarb:awab:at]eba 'my (two) wives':
.A
/X / \ A
g a b a r n a m a r b : a w a b : a Q e b a
■ ^ 1 ^ V
" A / /
m m M m m
(2) Over the roots of the trees in 1) construct:
(a) a left-headed, unbounded tree over the stem (root and suffix/es), incorporating any isolated syllables not utilised in 1., and then
(b) a right-headed unbounded tree over any prefix/es, incorporating, in the same way, any isolated syllables.
(Note that if the operation of Stress Rule 1 creates only one binary foot on the first tier and there are no remaining isolated syllables, then no further tiers are required to complete stress assignment.)
Rule 2 gives the following construction for the example 'my (two) wives':
0 e b a