A Phonetically Driven Account of Syllable Weight

The author proposes that syllable weight is driven by considerations of phonetic effectiveness and phonological simplicity, and that the phonetically best distinctions are those which divide syllables into groups that are phonetically most distinct from each other. Phonologically complex distinctions are those which exceed an upper threshold in the number of phonological predicates to which they refer. It is claimed that languages adopt weight distinctions that are phonetically most effective without being overly complex phonologically. Syllable weight thus reflects a compromise between phonetic and phonological factors. The proposed model of weight further suggests that phonological weight distinctions are ultimately predictable from other basic phonological properties, such as syllable structure.*

1. Syllable weight

Linguists have long observed that certain phonological processes in many languages distinguish between ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ syllables (see, for example, Jakobson 1931, Trubetzkoy 1939, Allen 1973, Hyman 1977, 1985, 1992, McCarthy 1979, Zec 1988, Hayes 1989). Syllable weight has played an increasingly larger role in more recent phonological theory, as the number of prosodic phenomena argued to instantiate syllable weight has grown to encompass diverse phenomena such as weight-sensitive stress, compensatory lengthening, reduplication, minimal word requirements, and tone, among others. Drawing on data from these weight-sensitive phenomena, linguists have developed simple yet compelling theories of weight grounded in fundamental concepts such as phonemic length, segment count, and sonority.

As our data base on weight-sensitive phenomena has expanded to include ever more explicit information on a larger cross-section of languages, theories of weight have been presented with new and interesting opportunities for empirical validation. While the expanded empirical base has corroborated many standard notions about syllable weight, it has also brought new challenges to the theory of weight: an increasingly diverse set of weight distinctions crosslinguistically, individual languages sensitive to multiple weight distinctions, weight distinctions based neither on the number of segments nor on phonemic length contrasts, and cases of conflicted weight criteria for different weight-sensitive processes in the same language. These new data continue to necessitate expansions of the formal apparatus in the theory of weight, suggesting the need for reexamination of the phenomenon of syllable weight.

This article explores the extent to which syllable weight is linked to both phonetic and phonological properties. As such, it may be viewed as part of two research programs: one relating the phonology and phonetics of weight (see, for example, Maddieson 1993, Archangeli & Pulleyblank 1994, Hubbard 1994, 1995, Broselow et al. 1997), and one linking phonological patterns to a combination of phonetic and phonological considerations (see, for example, Hayes 1999).

My focus is weight-sensitive stress, which is both the best documented weight-sensitive process and the one that also displays the broadest range of weight distinctions crosslinguistically. For these reasons, weight-sensitive stress provides a good testing ground for examining the theory of weight. Some data on metrics is also included as poetic metrics and stress bear a close relationship in many languages of the world (Hayes 1988, Gordon 1999a).

The article consists of two main parts, one typological and one experimental. After presenting a typology of the weight distinctions involved in weight-sensitive stress systems, I argue on the basis of phonetic data from several languages that consideration of phonetic properties offers insight into a number of aspects of syllable weight: the basis for complex weight hierarchies involving three and four levels of weight, the language-specific choice of weight distinctions, and the relationship between syllable structure and weight. Consideration of phonetic data, however, shows that phonetics by itself is insufficient to account for the phonology of weight. Rather, phonological simplicity plays an important role in ruling out weight distinctions which are phonetically superior but overly complex.

2. A crosslinguistic overview of weight

In languages with weight-sensitive stress, syllables that are heavier tend to attract stress, while lighter syllables often resist being stressed (Hyman 1985, Levin 1985, Zec 1988, Hayes 1995). For example, in Yana (Sapir & Swadesh 1960), stress falls on the first syllable in a word which is either closed (1a) or contains a long vowel or diphthong (1b). If there are no closed syllables or syllables with a...