Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 1
Stress patterns in English words
ultimate
2 syllable propose, tattoo
words
control, canoe
betray
forget
3 syllable ?
words
pen-ultimate
pirate
tuba
Marxist
nature
agenda
appendix
redundant
Vancouver
4 syllable ?
words
democratic
correspondent
Honolulu
pre-pen-ultimate
----
pedigree
president
Galveston
colony
family
economy
democracy
colonial
interior
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 2
Stress patterns in “English” non-sense words
The syllable selected for stress follows from a rule
ultimate
2 syllable grofot
words
bidou
frodose
trivol
3 syllable ---words
pen-ultimate
ripate
buta
karmist
narute
edanga
addinpox
Couvancor
dedondont
pre-pen-ultimate
----
4 syllable ---words
lototunu
pocusrondant
modudramie
cremodacy
conolial
reinteor
enocomy
gipidry
sipredint
locany
Velgostan
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 3
Stress patterns in “English” non-sense words
The syllable selected for stress follows from a rule
ultimate
2 syllable grofot
words
bidou
frodose
trivol
3 syllable ---words
pen-ultimate
ripate
buta
karmist
narute
edanga
addinpox
Couvancor
dedondont
pre-pen-ultimate
----
4 syllable ---words
lototunu
pocusrondant
modudramie
cremodacy
conolial
reinteor
enocomy
gipidry
sipredint
locany
Velgostan
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 4
The stress rules
distinctions in a language (there are more)
quantity
- heavy syllable
CV
Van-cou-ver
CVC re-dun-dant
- light syllable
CV
democracy
foot
- trochaic (strong-weak) [ σ σ ] Paris
- iambic (weak-strong) [ σ σ ] Paris
directedness feet are assigned
- from left-to-right
σ σ (σ)
- from right-to-left
(σ) σ σ
extra-metric ‘ternary’ feet dealt with
syllable
- <+ extra-metrically>
e-le-(phant), pre-si-(dent)
canoe, tatoe
- <− extra-metrically>
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 5
Stress derivations in English
Por tu (gal)
=> leave last syllable out
a ka (ba)
=> parse in trochees
A me ri (ca)
=> from right to left
Ho no lu (lu)
=> main stress on rightness foot
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 6
Stress patterns in English words again
pen-ultimate
pre-pen-ultimate
3 syllable
words
agenda
appendix
redundant
Vancouver
4 syllable
words
democratic
correspondent
Honolulu
pedigree
president
Galveston
colony
family
economy
democracy
colonial
interior
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 7
Questions for cue ~ students
1. Are stress patterns rules that are acquired?
(probably, we agree over stress in non-sense words)
2. Which simplifications (truncations for example) are
applied by the child? (assemble data)
3. Which pre-system predicts the simplifications?
(be careful that your pre-system is truly more simple)
4. What does the pre-system suggest for naturally
learnable systems in general?
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 8
Historical background: Jakobson (1942)
Kindersprache, Afasie und allgemeine Lautgesetze
Some 20 universal articulation oppositions suffice to
cover all natural language sound systems. The
oppositions follow from the articulation apparatus.
For example, the non-sonorant consonants (in English/
Dutch) can be based on 4 ± options, is 24=16 items
<± anterior>, <± coronal>, <± voice>, <± continuant>
See next slide
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 9
Historical background: Jakobson (1942)
+ anterior
continuant
−
+
p
b
f
v
t
d
s
z
− anterior
tj
dj
sj
(z)j
+ coronal
− coronal
k
g
ch
g
− voice
+
− voice
+
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 10
Historical background: Jakobson (1942)
1. Children learn the speech sounds of their language in
a predictable order.
2. That order is fixed in a hierarchy of universal
(articulation) features.
3. Some features are always used in all languages and
other features are only used in some languages.
4. The always chosen features are learned first, the
vowels aa - ie - oe and consonants p - t – k.
5. Features that are learned early are historically more
stable and typologically more spread.
6. In aphasia, the features that were acquired last
disappear first, and the features acquired first
disappear last.
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 11
Historical background: Jakobson (1942)
1. - Suppose, there is no language that lacks the p or the aa.
- Child language tends to start with these two sounds (pa-pa).
- These sounds are “most innate” (least marked).
2.
- The p is the maximal closure of the mouth.
- The aa is maximally opening the mouth.
- This yields the UG properties: maximal articulation contrast;
easiest to tell apart; most learnable; occurs in all languages
3. - Jacobson attempts to derive (part of) UG from a hierarchy in
neural (articulation) controls.
- He does not propose that the learnability hierarchy is specific
to the language faculty.
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 12
Cues for stress rules (Dresher 1999)
Dresher (1999) proposes cues for all stress parameters
A cue
1. is a well identifiable characteristic of the input.
2. causes (triggers) the learner to set an a priori
parameter.
3. holds the learner to his initial choice.
4. causes an acquisition order.
Blind deterministic effect
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 13
Learnability order (Dresher 1999)
Certain cues are listened to before others.
Dresher (1999) proposes that there are early decisions:
9 quantity: which syllables are ‘light’, which are
‘heavy’?
9 extra-metric syllables: which syllable positions are
extra-metrical?
Later cues would trigger type of foot:
9 [ σ σ ] (trochee) or [ σ σ ] (iambe)
(Hierarchy of cues is an additional assumption. It is not
yet much of an explanation)
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 14
Learnability order (Dresher 1999)
How can the child find out it is handy to differentiate between
light syllable/ heavy syllable?
Dresher proposes:
Let the child’s learning procedure compare three and four syllable
words.
9 If the penultimate gets stress it is closed - VC (correspondent)
or tensed (Vancouver)
9 If the penultimate is not stressed, it is open (Portugal) and
stress falls on the pre-penultimate
Hence, stress distribution in 3 or 4 syllable words may lead to the
distribution between strong/weak syllables. That must be due to a
syllable quality in the pen-ultimate.
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 15
Acquisition questions for Dresher’s proposal
Dresher’s proposal (as he explicitly admits) is a mere
theoretical proposal. He doesn’t consider:
Acquisition questions
1. Which percentage of the child’s lexicon consists of 3 or 4syllable words?
2. Why should the child be so concerned about the pen- and
pre-penultimate stress in these words?
3. At which age is it clear that stress in 3 and 4-syllable
words is well-established?
4. Is it only after that point that the extra-metricality and the
quantity in two-syllable words become obvious?
ETC…
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 16
Truncation patterns in English child language
See the following patterns of simplifications by
Kehoe & Stoel-Gammon (1997)
S(W)S
CRO(co)DILE
DI(no)SAUR
TE(le)PHONE
(W)SW
(ba)NAna
(to)MAto
(po)TAto
S(W)S
KAN(ga)ROO
CHIM(pan)ZEE
S(W)W
A(ni)mal
E(le)phant
OC(to)pus
S(W)SW also truncated
AL(li)GAtor
HE(li)COPter
A(vo)CAdo
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 17
Truncation patterns in child language
Acquisition facts
9 Initially, all words are reduced to a two-syllable
pattern.
9 Mute syllables (consonant-schwa) are left out in the
middle (exclusion of all 3- and 4-syllable words).
9 The percentage of trochaic forms may now be
overwhelming.
I will not pursue the matter, but jump to the moral:
1. Look at the child’s simplifications first.
2. Look at percentages in his/her acquisition data.
Stress Patterns Week I-Tuesday 18
Acquisition order
The moral
1. Look at the child’s simplifications first.
2. Recalculate his input from that point of view.
9 The acquisition procedure:
leave out syllables based on a mute vowel ‘schwa’
settles the habit of perceiving in trochaic frames.
9 The later addition of mute syllables at the end or
middle maintains the original trochee and adds extrametrical syllables.
9 I will not pursue this, but the decision; throw out all
mute syllables, seems simpler than: consider first
stress in 3 and 4-syllable words.