Questions: Prosodic Structure and Formal Constraints

Question 1

In a quantity-sensitive language, syllables with a long vowel (CVV) consistently attract stress while syllables with a short vowel (CV) do not, regardless of their position in the word. What formal unit captures the distinction between these syllable types that directly governs stress assignment?

• A. The prosodic word — CVV syllables are mapped directly to prosodic words while CV syllables are not
• B. The mora — CVV syllables contain two morae (heavy) while CV syllables contain one mora (light)
• C. The foot — CVV syllables form trochaic feet while CV syllables form iambic feet
• D. The intonational phrase — long vowels mark phrase boundaries that attract phrasal stress

Answer: (B)

The mora is the sub-syllabic unit of weight in prosodic theory. A short vowel syllable (CV) contains one mora — it is 'light.' A long vowel syllable (CVV) or closed syllable (CVC in some languages) contains two morae — it is 'heavy.' Quantity-sensitive stress systems assign stress to heavy syllables (or to the head foot, where foot structure itself is influenced by weight). The mora level is the formal locus at which this distinction is captured; without it, the stress pattern cannot be stated as a regular rule. The prosodic hierarchy makes weight a level-specific constraint — it governs structures at the mora and syllable levels.

Question 2

In English, 'thirteen' is stressed on the second syllable (*thir-TEEN*) in isolation, but shifts to the first syllable (*THIR-teen*) when followed by a stressed syllable (as in 'THIR-teen MEN'). The metrical grid analysis explains this shift as an instance of:

• A. Foot-type alternation — English switches from iambic to trochaic footing depending on syntactic context
• B. Avoidance of stress clash — adjacent prominent beats violate eurhythmy, so stress shifts to restore alternating rhythm
• C. Prosodic word boundary reanalysis — the phrase boundary moves, changing which syllable heads the prosodic word
• D. Intonational phrase reset — the pitch reset at the phrase boundary redistributes prominence

Answer: (B)

The metrical grid represents relative prominence as columns of grid marks: more marks = more prominent. When 'thirteen' (stress on second syllable) is followed by a stressed syllable like 'men,' the grid shows two adjacent columns with high prominence — a stress clash. Languages strongly prefer alternating prominence patterns (eurhythmy), so stress shifts leftward to *THIR-teen MEN*, distributing prominence more evenly. The rhythm rule (stress shift to avoid clash) is a consequence of the metrical grid's formal representation of eurhythmy preferences. This is the formal account of what speakers experience as a natural rhythm adjustment.

Question 3

In the prosodic hierarchy, each level of structure is built from units of the level immediately below it — feet are built from syllables, prosodic words from feet, and so on.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

The strict layering condition is a foundational constraint of prosodic hierarchy theory: each prosodic category is exhaustively parsed into units of the immediately lower category, and no level can directly reference levels more than one step away. Morae make up syllables; syllables make up feet; feet make up prosodic words; prosodic words make up phonological phrases; and so on. This hierarchical architecture is what allows the formalism to capture level-specific constraints (e.g., weight distinctions at the mora level, foot-type preferences at the foot level) while predicting how they interact at higher levels.

Question 4

The placement of clitics (unstressed function words like 'the,' 'a,' 'of') is a purely syntactic matter, determined by phrase structure rules, and cannot be explained by prosodic structure.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

Clitic attachment is determined by the prosodic word boundary, not syntax alone. A syntactically free function word becomes a clitic when it attaches prosodically to an adjacent content word, forming a single prosodic word unit with it. The direction of attachment (proclitics lean on what follows; enclitics lean on what precedes) and whether cliticization occurs at all is governed by prosodic word well-formedness constraints — specifically, whether the resulting prosodic word satisfies foot-structure requirements. Prosodic domains and syntactic domains often align, but they are distinct levels of representation, and mismatches between them are a productive area of phonological research.

Question 5

What is a metrical grid, and what prosodic phenomena does it capture that a simple binary stress-marking system (marking each syllable as simply 'stressed' or 'unstressed') cannot?

Model answer: A metrical grid represents relative prominence across syllables as columns of grid marks, where more marks indicate greater prominence. Unlike a binary system that only distinguishes stressed from unstressed, the grid represents degrees of stress — a syllable can be prominent at the syllable level, the word level, and the phrase level, each adding a row of marks. This multi-level representation captures several phenomena: (1) relative prominence within words (primary vs. secondary stress), (2) eurhythmy effects — stress clash (adjacent prominent syllables) and stress lapse (adjacent non-prominent syllables) — and (3) the rhythm rule (stress shift to resolve clash). A binary system cannot represent that 'thirteen' is stressed at the word level but its prominence is insufficient to resist shifting when adjacent to another prominent syllable.

The grid makes explicit the insight that stress is not binary but hierarchical — reflecting prominence at multiple levels simultaneously. This is why a single phonological event (saying 'thirteen men' vs. 'thirteen apples') can produce different surface stress patterns: the grid-level interaction between words changes the local prominence landscape.