The main objective of this book is to account for some aspects of the prosodic phonology of Ayt Wirra Tamazight Berber within the framework of Optimality Theory as conceived in Prince and Smolensky (1993) and McCarthy and Prince (1993a) and developed in the Correspondence model of McCarthy and Prince (1995, 1999) and other related works. In fact, one of the least studied linguistic phenomena in Berber phonology is stress. Apart from the impressionistic and linear treatments conducted by scholars who investigated the metrics of different varieties of Berber (cf. Laoust (1918 –1939), Apllegate (1958), Abdel-Massih (1968), Prasse (1972), Chami (1979), Bounfour (1985), etc.), recent studies of Berber phonology conducted within the non-linear metrical framework include Adnor (1995), Marouane (1997) and Faizi (2002). For this reason, the present book claims that the stress system and stress assignment are better understood as cases involving interaction between two types of conflicting universal constraints: markedness constraints and faithfulness constraints.
The book provides a series of exercises that allows students not only to learn about phonology, but also to do phononological analysis.
Table of Contents
1. PREFACE
2. DEDICATION
3. ACKNOLEDGEMENTS
4. PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION
5. ABBREVIATIONS
6. INTRODUCTION
7. CHAPTER ONE: PRELIMINARIES
7.1. I-0- INTRODUCTION
7.2. I-1- WORD STRESS: GENERAL BACKGROUND
7.3. I-2 METRICAL ANALYSES OF STRESS IN BERBER
7.3.1. I-2-1 Adnor (1995)
7.3.2. I-2-2 Marouane (1997)
7.3.3. I-2-3 Faizi (2002)
7.4. I-3 CONCLUSION
8. CHAPTER TWO: DISTRIBUTION OF STRESS IN AWTB
8.1. II-1 THE TAMAZIGHT DIALECT OF EL KSIBA
8.2. II-2 THE PHONEME INVENTORY
8.2.1. II-2-1- The Vocalic System
8.2.2. II-2-2 The Consonantal System
8.3. II-3 DISTRIBUTION OF STRESS IN AWTB
8.3.1. II-3-1 Stress Assignment in Nouns and Adjectives
8.3.2. II-3-2 Stress Distribution in Verbs
9. CHAPTER THREE: AN OPTIMALITY-THEORECTIC ANALYSIS OF STRESS AND EXTRAPROSODICITY IN AWTB
9.1. III-1 OPTIMALITY THEORY
9.1.1. III-1-1 Structure and Principles of OT
9.1.2. III-1-2 The Constraints
9.1.3. III-1-3- The Ranking of Constraints
9.2. III-2 THE STRESS PATTERN OF NOUNS
9.3. III-3 THE STRESS PATTERN OF VERBS
9.4. III- 4 CONCLUSION
10. GENERAL CONCLUSION
Objectives and Topics
The primary objective of this book is to analyze the prosodic phonology and stress assignment of the Ayt Wirra Tamazight Berber (AWTB) language within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT). The work aims to demonstrate that, contrary to some previous non-linear metrical analyses, the interaction of universal markedness and faithfulness constraints provides an accurate account of the stress patterns observed in AWTB nouns and verbs.
- Phonological analysis of stress in Berber dialects.
- Application of Optimality Theory (OT) to prosodic structure.
- Investigation of syllable weight and extraprosodicity.
- Comparative review of metrical treatments in Berber phonology.
- Analysis of stress behavior in nouns, adjectives, and verbs.
Excerpt from the Book
I-1- Word Stress: General Background
In phonetics, stress refers to the degree of force that accompanies the production of a syllable. Scholars draw a distinction between stressed and unstressed syllables. The former are said to be more prominent than the latter. Here prominence may be equated with an increase in length, pitch and loudness.
Stress also plays a phonological role. In fact, it is a means to distinguish “degrees of emphasis or contrast in sentences”, argues Crystal (1985, 289). As a case of contrastive sentence stress we provide the following example: The young lady is coming. In addition, words can be classified in terms of the variation of stress they display. An example of word stress cited by Crystal (op-cit) is the pair ‘increase (noun) and in’crease (verb).
Stress languages share certain properties. Among these four are saliently known. The first one is labelled the culminative property. In fact, in some languages stress falls on a fixed syllable. For instance, in Welsh stress is most of the time assigned to the penultimate. In this respect, Kager (1999, 143) argues that “many languages impose this ‘stressability requirement’on content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) only”. Function words, on the other hand, do not have to be stressed.
Closely related to the notion of culminative stress is the requirement that content words should be of a certain size: two light syllables or a heavy syllable. In the literature on stress, this minimality condition is what is referred to as the foot. Moreover, if a word fails to satisfy this binarity requirement, languages resort to augmentation processes, lengthening an existing full vowel or epenthesising a vowel to the subminimal word.
Summary of Chapters
CHAPTER ONE: PRELIMINARIES: This chapter introduces basic notions of stress, reviews previous metrical analyses of Berber, and presents the foundational principles of Optimality Theory.
CHAPTER TWO: DISTRIBUTION OF STRESS IN AWTB: This chapter provides a linguistic overview of AWTB and describes the empirical stress facts for nouns, adjectives, and verbs, while explaining the methodology of data collection.
CHAPTER THREE: AN OPTIMALITY-THEORECTIC ANALYSIS OF STRESS AND EXTRAPROSODICITY IN AWTB: This chapter applies OT principles, including constraint ranking and the treatment of extraprosodic affixes, to formally account for the observed stress patterns.
Keywords
Optimality Theory, Ayt Wirra Tamazight Berber, Stress Assignment, Metrical Phonology, Prosodic Word, Syllable Weight, Extraprosodicity, Markedness Constraints, Faithfulness Constraints, Foot Structure, Phonological Analysis, Berber Phonology, Culminative Property, Constraint Interaction, Affixation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core focus of this research?
The work focuses on analyzing the stress system of the Ayt Wirra Tamazight Berber (AWTB) language, specifically looking at how stress is assigned to nouns and verbs within the framework of Optimality Theory.
What are the central themes discussed in this book?
The book covers the prosodic phonology of Berber, the nature of syllable weight, the concept of extraprosodicity, and how constraint-based theories explain linguistic stress phenomena.
What is the primary objective or research question?
The primary goal is to provide a comprehensive account of AWTB stress using Optimality Theory, demonstrating that the interaction of universal constraints is superior to serial non-linear models in explaining these linguistic facts.
Which scientific methodology is applied?
The author uses a constraint-based approach within the Optimality Theory (OT) framework, specifically utilizing constraint tableaux and hierarchical rankings to determine optimal candidate structures.
What topics are covered in the main body?
The main body reviews existing metrical literature, presents a descriptive analysis of AWTB stress data, and develops formal OT explanations for nouns, verbs, and the behavior of extraprosodic affixes.
What are the characterizing keywords of this work?
Key terms include Optimality Theory, AWTB, stress assignment, metrical phonology, syllable weight, extraprosodicity, and constraint interaction.
How does AWTB differ from other dialects in its treatment of the feminine suffix?
Unlike the Goulmima Tamazight Berber (GTB) dialect, where the feminine suffix contributes to syllable weight, in AWTB it is treated as stress-inert or extraprosodic.
Why does the author argue that OT is superior to previous serial models?
The author contends that OT allows for the simultaneous presence of iambic and trochaic feet through constraint interaction, whereas serial models force a language to strictly choose one or the other, leading to inadequacies in the analysis.
- Arbeit zitieren
- Youcef Hdouch (Autor:in), 2016, From Metrical Theory to Optimality Theory, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.hausarbeiten.de/document/334893
