Stress and Gemination in Alor-Pantar Languages: Revising Heston (2016)

This squib highlights difficulties with the reconstruction of a system of stress based on moraic trochees in Proto-Timor-Alor-Pantar recently presented by Heston. Examination of a wider set of data from the Alor-Pantar languages shows that there are numerous etyma whose synchronic behavior in terms of consonant gemination and stress placement cannot be accounted for by the proposed system. Instead, it is necessary to recognize the presence of phonemic stress placement at least in ProtoAlor-Pantar and likely in Proto-Timor-Alor-Pantar.