6  Word-prosodic units

6.1 Suprasegmentals

We spent a lot of time talking about segmental level of a language (vowel and consonants). In this chapter we will try to grasp some suprasegmental features that superimposed on the syllable level or even word level. Here is the list of some suprasegmental units:

  • stress
  • tone
  • intonation
  • rhythm
  • pauses

6.2 Stress

Stress refers to greater prominence associated with certain syllables in a word and can be manifested with

  • increased duration
  • higher fundamental frequency
  • increased intensity

Descriptive typology of stress:

Weight-sensitive systems led to the creation of Moraic Theory (Hyman 1985), based on (M. K. Gordon 2016):

There is a list of works in (M. K. Gordon 2016) that provide some phonetic underpinnings of syllable weight (Broselow, Chen, and Huffman 1997; Ahn 2000; M. Gordon 2002, 2005a, 2005b; Ryan 2014).

6.3 Tone

Tone languages use fundamental frequency for contrasting words and its perceptual correlate is pitch. The tone languages are widespread, especially in Africa, Central America, and Southeast Asia (see the WALS chapter by (Maddieson 2013)). In some languages, e.g. Thai and Mandarin, tone carries a high functional load in conveying lexical contrasts, while in others, e.g. Swedish and Koasati, tone plays a more circumscribed role. Like tone, intonation is signaled through differences in fundamental frequency. Unlike tone, however, intonation is used to communicate higher level information not lexically associated with morphemes.

Ahn, M.-J. 2000. “Phonetic and Functional Bases of Syllable Weight for Stress Assignment.” University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Broselow, E., S.-I. Chen, and M. Huffman. 1997. “Syllable Weight: Convergence of Phonology and Phonetics.” Phonology 14 (1): 47–82.
Fletcher, N. 2007. “Animal Bioacoustics.” In Springer Handbook of Acoustics, edited by Thomas D. Rossing, 785–804. New York: Springer.
Goedemans, R., and H. van der Hulst. 2013a. “Fixed Stress Locations.” In The World Atlas of Language Structures Online, edited by Matthew S. Dryer and Martin Haspelmath. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. https://wals.info/chapter/14.
———. 2013b. “Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems.” In The World Atlas of Language Structures Online, edited by Matthew S. Dryer and Martin Haspelmath. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. https://wals.info/chapter/16.
———. 2013c. “Weight-Sensitive Stress.” In The World Atlas of Language Structures Online, edited by Matthew S. Dryer and Martin Haspelmath. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. https://wals.info/chapter/15.
Gordon, M. 2002. “A Phonetically Driven Account of Syllable Weight.” Language 78: 51–80.
———. 2005a. “A Perceptually-Driven Account of Onset-Sensitive Stress.” Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 23 (3): 595–653.
———. 2005b. “An Autosegmental/Metrical Model of Chickasaw Intonation.” In Prosodic Typology: The Phonology of Intonation and Phrasing, 301–30. Oxford University Press.
———. 2007. Syllable Weight: Phonetics, Phonology, Typology. Routledge.
Gordon, M. K. 2016. Phonological Typology. Oxford University Press.
Hyman, L. 1985. “A Theory of Phonological Weight.” In A Theory of Phonological Weight. Dordrecht: Foris.
Maddieson, Ian. 2013. “Tone.” In The World Atlas of Language Structures Online, edited by Matthew S. Dryer and Martin Haspelmath. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. https://wals.info/chapter/13.
Ryan, K. M. 2014. “Onsets Contribute to Syllable Weight: Statistical Evidence from Stress and Meter.” Language 90: 309–41.