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The interaction of tone,
sonority, and prosodic
structure
Paul de Lacy
12.1 Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to link the major aspects of suprasegmental phonology discussed in this part of the Handbook (i.e. tone – Yip Ch.10, Gussenhoven Ch.11; sonority – Zec Ch.8; prosodic structure – Zec Ch.8, Kager Ch.9). It shows how sonority and tone can both influence and be influenced by prosodic structure. It argues that there is a unifying theoret- ical mechanism that accounts for such influences and how this same mechanism accounts for interactions at all prosodic levels, from below the syllable to the Utterance. To illustrate the theoretical points, the initial empirical focus will be on the influence that sonority can have on foot structure, often called ‘sonority-driven stress’. Relevant data from the North New Guinea language Takia are provided in (1). (1) Takia sonority-driven stress (Ross 2002, 2003)
As with other stress systems, edge-attraction is evident (Kager Ch.9): in a word where all vowels are the same, stress is attracted to the right edge (e.g. [ara"tam], [ifi"ni], [tu"bun]). However, the most important factor for Takia is sonority: stress must fall on the most sonorous vowel available, where the part of the sonority scale that is relevant for Takia is | a i e,o i i,u | (for details
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on sonority, see Section 12.2). The sonority requirements also override conditions on foot form: while [(ta"man)] has an iambic (right-headed) foot, [("abi)] has a trochaic one in order to have a higher sonority foot head. Section 12.2 identifies several competing theories that aim to account for the interaction seen in Takia and others like it. It argues that recent approaches that derive constraints from markedness hierarchies in a re- strictive fashion can account for the observed patterns with sonority and stress (Kenstowicz 1997/2004, de Lacy 2004); it contrasts this approach with ones that employ representational devices (e.g. distinctions in mora count, featural impoverishment). Section 12.3 identifies analogous influences between sonority and un- stressed positions, demonstrating the generality of the interaction between prosodic structure and sonority. The constraint-based proposal is extended to tone-prosody interactions in Section 12.4, different prosodic levels in Section 12.5, and Section 12.6 shows that it can also account for tone– and sonority–prosody interactions involving metathesis, deletion, epenthesis, and neutralization. This chapter links a number of traditionally distinct areas of research. It discusses markedness and its formal expression: sonority- and tone- driven stress are transparently sensitive to markedness hierarchies, unlike many segmental phenomena (Rice 4.6, de Lacy 2006). It is also a crucial complement to metrical stress theory (Kager Ch.9) since it is not possible to fully account for influences on foot form without considering sonority and tone. Non-metrical stress also provides a link to syllable theory. As Zec (Ch.8) shows, sonority plays a crucial role in the formation of syllables, and the same principles are relevant in foot formation. Finally, tone-driven stress provides insight into how tone and prosodic structure interact, relating to research on both tone (Yip Ch.10) and intonation (Gussenhoven Ch.11). To give a brief overview of the current state of research in this area, some aspects of the interaction of tone and sonority with prosodic struc- ture have a large literature behind them while others do not. While a great deal has been written about the influence of edges and moraic content on foot structure (see Kager Ch.9), work on sonority- and tone- driven stress is extremely limited in comparison (see the overviews for sonority in Section 12.2, and for tone: de Lacy 2002b). Other related phe- nomena, such as sonority-driven deletion, also do not have a large litera- ture (see Gouskova 2003 and references cited therein). In contrast, there has been a large amount of research into sonority-driven neutralization (also called ‘vowel reduction’ or ‘raising’) (see Crosswhite 1999, 2004 and references cited therein). A great deal has also been written about met- rical influences on tone, forcing tone shift, deletion, neutralization, and so on (see Goldsmith 1987, Downing 1990, Yip 2002, Sec.3.9, 10.3–4 for overviews). Despite the various approaches and different amounts of re- search on these topics, it is clear that they are currently converging in a
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Sonority
Takia’s stress system is governed by a number of conflicting requirements. One involves ‘sonority’, which refers to a hierarchy of segment types; the vocalic portion is given in (3), adapted from Kenstowicz (1997/2004) and de Lacy (2006).^2 The exact number of sonority distinctions and their phonetic basis (if there is any) is a very contentious issue: see Parker (2002) for a comprehensive overview. The distinctions given here are needed to account for the range of sonority-driven stress systems identified in Section 12.2.2. 3 (See Section 12.2.2 for discussion of whether sonority can be decomposed into sub-hierarchies and which other features can influ- ence prosodic structure.)
(3) Vowel Sonority Hierarchy
Representative vowels are given for each category and will be used as abbreviations for the categories in the rest of this chapter. Of course, many more vowels belong to the categories than the abbreviations suggest; for example, ‘high peripheral vowels’ includes [y M] as well as [i u]. For discus- sion about whether hierarchies other than or instead of sonority can influ- ence foot placement, see Section 12.2.2. Optimality Theory provides the means to formally express the sonority hierarchy in (3) through the form of constraints, as in (4). Because these constraints are in a subset-relation in terms of their violation marks, they are in a ‘stringency’ relation (Prince 1998 et seq.). This general approach to expressing markedness hierarchies is called ‘Stringent Markedness’. 4 (4) Stringent sonority constraints (Prince 1998, de Lacy 2002a, 2004, 2006)
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There are specific instantiations of the constraints in (4) for each level of the prosodic hierarchy. From the data given above, it is impossible to tell for Takia whether sonority refers to foot heads (i.e. all stressed syllables) or PrWd heads (i.e. just the main-stressed syllable). Either will work for Takia, so reference to foot heads will be arbitrarily assumed here as it makes no difference to the main points of the analysis. (Other types of head and non-
head are discussed in Section 12.3.) So, *Hd Ft / , @,iu is violated whenever a
stressed syllable (i.e. the head of a foot) contains a high central, mid central, or high peripheral vowel. For example, [("pka)(%t@ki)(%tipa)] violates it three times, as do [("pika)(%tiki)(%tipa)] and [("p@ka)(%t@ki)(%t@pa)]. The term ‘head’ is slightly imprecise as it has been used in a variety of different ways. For the cases discussed here, the ‘head of a’ is the nuclear vowel of a dominated by a series of prosodic heads up to a-level. See Zec’s (8.5.1, 2000, 2003) theory of prosodic thresholds and de Lacy’s (1999b, 2002a, 2006) Designated Terminal Element theory for more explicit ap- proaches to prosodic reference.
Avoidance of stressed high vowels
The forms in (5) show the influence of the *Hd Ft/ , @,iu constraint. Stress
could fall on the default (i.e. rightmost) syllable, but doing so would result in a stressed high peripheral vowel when there is a more desirable non-high vowel elsewhere in the word. Instead, stress is attracted away from a fixed position on the final syllable to fall on the highest sonority syllable.
(5) Avoidance of stressed high vowels in Takia
Tableau (6) illustrates with the word ["bemfufu]. Candidate (a) fares best in terms of the foot-form and location constraints, but in doing so fatally vio-
lates *Hd Ft/ ,@,iu. In contrast, candidate (b) avoids violations of *Hd Ft/ ,@,iu
by stressing the initial mid vowel, and in doing so violates both align-R and iamb. Even though Takia does not allow central vowels on the surface, the
constraint *Hd Ft/ ,@,iu is used here because constraints are universal –
i.e. there is no *Hd (^) Ft/iu.
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Do feet exist in Takia?
The preceding analysis has assumed that PrWds are parsed into feet. This assumption is based on the hypothesis that all languages employ all pros- odic constituents in the Prosodic Hierarchy, including feet. The fact that foot form is blithely ignored in Takia’s stress system does not mean that feet do not exist in the language. In fact, there is evidence that they are important. All of the content words cited by Ross (2002, 2003) are mini- mally disyllabic; none have the form [(C)V(C)]. As Kager (Ch.9) explains, such minimal word restrictions can be accounted for by requirements on the form of feet. Specifically, FtBin-s “Feet are disyllabic” (based on McCarthy & Prince’s 1986 FtBin) must outrank a relevant faithfulness constraint so that underlying /pa/ would surface as [pata] (through epenthesis) or (through deletion). 6 In any case, the influence of foot structure is evident in many sonority- and tone-driven stress systems, and will be discussed in Section 12.3.
The final main-stress ranking
Some rankings cannot be determined from the available data. For example,
there is no way to determine the ranking of *Hd Ft / ,@,iu and *Hd Ft / ,@,iu,eo
with respect to each other. Even more acutely, the ranking of *HdFt/ , @,iu,eo,a
cannot be determined in regard to the constraints discussed above as every winning candidate violates this constraint in Takia. Similarly, the ranking of constraints such as *Hd (^) Ft/ cannot be determined as Takia bans [] on the surface (by means of *Nuc/ – Prince & Smolensky 2004). I add that the ranking of constraints in a stringency relation can be determined in some cases if there is another constraint C which dominates one constraint and is dominated by the other (see de Lacy 2006 Sec.5.3.2 for an example). Takia’s response to the sonority-head conditions is to deviate from the default metrical structure, and not delete the offending elements (/abi/! ["ab]), epenthesize (/abi/! [abi"a]), neutralize (/abi/! [a"ba]), or metathesize (/abi/! [i"ba]). Faithfulness constraints must therefore outrank the head- sonority constraints; these are discussed further in Section 12.6 but grouped under Faith here (10). (10) Takia’s sonority-driven stress ranking
Expressing universality
The constraints make it impossible to produce an ‘anti-Takia’ system where stress seeks out high vowels, then mid vowels, and only grudgingly falls on [a].
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For such a language, there would have to be a freely rankable constraint that assigns a violation to ["a] but not to any less sonorous stressed vowel: i.e. *HdFt/a. However, there is no such constraint in the set provided in (4). 7 Similarly, to have stress avoid mid vowels and favour high vowels, there would have to be a constraint *Hd (^) Ft/eo (or *HdFt/a,eo). Again, there is no such constraint. In fact, no matter how the *HdFt-sonority constraints are ranked, stressed low vowels will always be favoured over stressed mid- and high-peripheral vowels, and stressed mid-peripheral over high-peripheral vowels, and so on. This follows from the form of the constraints. Their effect can be seen visually in the quasi-tableau (11). Every stressed vowel incurs a proper subset of violations of all the less sonorous stressed vowels, so no matter how the constraints are ranked, the relative markedness of the vowels will remain the same. In this way, the constraint’s form expresses the universal relations in the sonority hierarchy.
(11) A stringency relation produces universal markedness implications
12.2.2 Typology and fixed ranking
The theory of sonority-driven stress presented above expresses the sonority hierarchy through constraint form. An alternative is to employ a univer- sally fixed ranking, and yet another is to rely less on constraints and more on representation. Both approaches will be discussed below.
Hierarchy through fixed ranking
Kenstowicz (1997/2004) proposes that the sonority-head constraints are in a universally invariant ranking, with the form in (12). The symbol ‘»»’ denotes a ‘fixed ranking’.
(12) Universally fixed ranking
The Fixed Ranking approach can deal with Takia equally as well as the Stringency approach by the ranking || *HdFt/i,u » *HdFt/e,o » Align-R(Ft,PrWd), Iamb ||. However, it makes different typological predictions from the strin- gency theory.
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peripheral vowels equally, as shown in tableau (15). Because *HdFt/ and *HdFt/
,@ are ranked below Align-R(Ft,PrWd), they have no effect on the outcome.
(15) Nganasan with Stringent constraints
In short, the Stringent theory is empirically more adequate than the Fixed Ranking theory – Fixed Ranking prevents attested cases where distinctions between sonority categories are ignored for stress purposes.
Typology
The table in (16) summarizes the typological predictions of the Stringency Theory, including cases with conflation. Almost every possible contiguous conflation in stress-sonority interaction is attested. Categories are marked as conflated if they are grouped inside the same oval. For example, the mid and low vowels are conflated in Pichis Asheninca, but the central and high vowels are not. For ease of presentation the table uses ‘/@’ to stand for any central vowel (e.g. Pichis Asheninca has [], not schwa); in any case, it is rare to find a language with a contrast between /@/ and // (Nganasan is one of the few). Similarly ‘e o’ stands for all mid vowels, including [e o e O] even though [e o] are demonstrably less sonorous than [e O] (see de Lacy 2006:Ch.7).
(16) Head-sonority conflation typology
The different systems are generated by different sets of active constraints.
The Gujarati system, for example, is due to both *Hd Ft/ ,@,iu,eo and *Hd Ft/ ,@
being active, while *Hd Ft/ ,@,iu is not (to allow conflation of high and mid
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vowels) (see de Lacy 2006 Sec.5.3.2). The table also shows that almost every imaginable conflation of vowel sonority is attested: any set of contiguous categories can be conflated. There are two systems missing from the table. One is a language that distinguishes all sonority levels: i.e. @ vs. i/u vs. e/o vs. a. Kobon is reported to have such distinctions (Kenstowicz 1997/2004), but Davies’ (1981) data only provide evidence for the distinctions | a i o i i, @ i | – i.e. high vowels and schwa could be conflated. Given the existence of languages like Takia and Nanti (Crowhurst & Michael 2005) which distinguish every sonority level they have (i.e. i,u vs. e,o vs. a) it is likely that this gap is due to the limited range of data currently available rather than signifying a theoretical issue. Similarly, I have not found a system that definitely conflates ["@] and ["i "u] but distinguishes mid from low vowels. In such a language, stress would first seek out a low vowel and otherwise a mid vowel; if there were only high and central vowels, stress would fall on the default position. Given that there are languages in which stress favors low vowels over mid vowels (e.g. Gujarati) and languages in which high peripheral vowels and schwa are conflated (e.g. Nganasan), I assume that this gap is accidental. There are a number of languages that have stress systems that are insensitive to sonority, even though they have very low sonority vowels. My own dialect of New Zealand English is one: schwa (which corresponds to [ I ] in many other dialects) can be stressed and more sonorous vowels do not attract the stress away from it: e.g. [dZu"dZ@tsu] ‘jujitsu’, *["dZudZ@tsu], /h@stO\i/ ‘history’! ["h@st@\i]/["h@s0\˚i], *[h@"stOri]. Other languages include Iaai (Lynch 2002) which has the vowels [a e O e o i u @], with consistent word-initial stress and schwa permitted word-initially. Theoretically significant gaps are those in which stress seeks out lower sonority vowels and disregards higher sonority ones. Such systems are unattested, as predicted by the constraint-based theories. There is one other systematic and theoretically significant gap: no lan- guage conflates non-contiguous categories. An example would be a lan- guage which conflates low and high vowels, but not mid vowels: stress would fall on the leftmost [a], [i], or [u], and skip over intervening mid vowels [e] and [o]. The stringent constraints predict that such a language cannot exist. It would require a constraint that favored stressed high vowels over stressed mid vowels (e.g. *Hd (^) Ft/mid vowels) and there is no such constraint in the theory.
Sonority, or something else?
After Kenstowicz (1997/2004), the discussion above has assumed that Takia and systems like it are sensitive to sonority rather than some other hier- archy. In contrast, Crowhurst & Michael (2005:70) propose that such stress systems are instead sensitive to two separate hierarchies: one on vowel height (HeightPk: | high i mid i low |), and one on vowel peripherality (PeriphPk: | central i peripheral |) (also see Smith 2002 Sec.23.2.2-fn.48).
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highest prominence grid-mark (in OT the prominence grid is accessed through the constraint PkProm – Prince & Smolensky 2004). While prominence grids are empirically adequate in accounting for sonority-driven stress – and every other type of stress – they are much too powerful when compared with approaches such as Kenstowicz’ (1997/2004). Prominence grids are unique devices: as Hayes (1995:274) observes, they are not like true metrical grids as they do not avoid clash or lapse (Kager 9.2.1). In contrast, the constraint formation mechanism that accounts for sonor- ity-driven stress discussed above is not unique to foot–sonority relations; it also applies to tone (12.4) and can motivate deletion, epenthesis, metath- esis, and neutralization (12.6). While prominence grids are transitory devices, and are only relevant to one rule or one constraint (i.e. PkProm), Kenstowicz’ proposal refers to an inherent property of segments – sonority – and one that can be accessed by any relevant constraint (or rule). The proposal also made a direct formal relation between sonority-driven stress and syllable construction, a relation that prominence grids obscure. On the empirical side, Hayes’ prominence grid formalism predicts that sonority and tone are irrelevant to foot construction (1995:272). Evidence against this prediction is found in systems where secondary stress (i.e. foot location) is influenced by sonority (see Section 12.3, McGarrity 2003, Crowhurst & Michael 2005). In short, the constraint-based approach avoids employing a transitory rule/constraint-specific device that unnecessarily abstracts away from properties such as sonority and tone.
Moras and featurelessness
An entirely different approach is to rely on the representation of individual segments to account for their behavior with stress. For example, a number of authors have proposed that schwa lacks subsegmental features, or a mora, or both (for recent discussion, see e.g. Oostendorp 1995, Crosswhite 2004). This idea is part of a broader approach to markedness that attempts to derive markedness relations from aspects of representation (e.g. Paradis & Prunet 1991b, Rice 1996, More´n 2003, and many others; cf. de Lacy 2006 Sec.8.4 and references cited therein for critical appraisal). The ‘moraic’ approach postulates that all syllable distinctions in stress are due to moraic content. In Gujarati, for example, stress seeks out [a] over [e O e o i u], and avoids [@] whenever possible. In a moraic approach, Gujarati [@] could have no moras, [a] two, and the other vowels one; preference for stressed syllables with greater moraic content would produce the observed stress system. In such an approach conflation is a side-effect of mora assignment; it is the fact that high and mid vowels have the same moraic content that results in their conflation. In effect, the moraic approach to sonority-driven stress outlined above converts moras into little more than a language-specific diacritic device that is almost synonymous with sonority. However, there is a difference between it and the sonority approach. Because moras represent duration,
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they make undesirable predictions for phonetic realization. In Gujarati, low vowels should be appreciably longer than high and mid vowels, and all should be longer than schwa. This is not so: there is no significant differ- ence between [a]’s duration and the other vowels’ in Gujarati (de Lacy 2002a, 2006). The same point can be made for other languages. For example, Takia’s high vowels would have to have one mora, mid vowels two, and [a] three; however, Ross does not report any significant length difference between them. Nganasan distinguishes two groups of vowels for stress: [ @ i y u] and [a e o]. The former group cannot have fewer moras than the latter because there is no significant durational difference between the two sets (de Lacy 2004 Sec.2.6.3). Finally, as Nina Topintzi (p.c.) observes, moraic approaches face a significant challenge when a language’s stress placement relies on both sonority and a syllable’s moraic content (e.g. Nanti – Crowhurst & Michael 2005). Representational theories also make strong predictions about other pro- cesses in the same language. Proposing that low vowels have more moras than other vowels predicts that they can – and perhaps must – be treated differently for other mora-referring processes. This prediction is criticized at length by Gordon (1999). Another popular representational theory relates specifically to the opposition between schwa and peripheral vowels, and relies on the idea that schwa lacks phonological features (e.g. Oostendorp 1995 and references cited therein). With additional theoretical devices, this fact makes schwas ‘weak’, and consequently unable to bear stress. This theory is one of a class that considers schwa to be fundamentally phonologically different from all other vowels. In contrast, the approach to stress proposed here denies that schwa is significantly different from other vowels in phonological terms – the only difference is that schwa is lower on the sonority hierarchy than (most) other vowels. A problem with relating lack of features to stress avoidance arises in languages in which schwa is conflated with other vowels. In Nganasan, [], [@], and [i y u] repel stress equally – i.e. they are conflated for stress purposes. If lack of features is the reason that schwa repels stress, then all of [ @ i y u] must be featureless. However, if all these vowels are featureless, then they should be phonologically indistinguishable. At the very least, it is clear that featurelessness is not sufficient on its own to account for stress repulsion. In the constraint-based approach, there is no need to appeal to lack of features or any other representational devices. Schwa is not fundamentally different from other vowels in terms of its representation. It is simply low on the sonority hierarchy; its behaviour in phonological processes follows from its sonority level, not from its lack of features. In short, attempts to deal with sonority-driven stress by appealing to representational differ- ences among vowels lead to unsupported predictions regarding duration, mora-sensitive phonological processes, or difficulties in accounting for
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It is clear that Kiriwina is not concerned with the sonority of its foot head. In [("migi)la] the foot is not aligned with the right edge even though its competitor *[mi("gila)] has the same quality stressed vowel. Instead, what matters is the sonority of the non-head vowel of the foot: in *[mi("gila)] the foot has a very high sonority non-head vowel [a], whereas in [("migi)la] it has a low sonority one – i.e. [i]. This pattern is generated by ranking *non-Hd (^) Ft/a,eo over the constraints that require right-alignment: i.e. Align-R(Ft,PrWd) (19): (19) Kiriwina: Non-head sonority
Interaction with metrical structure
It is interesting to note that Kiriwina is far more respectful of metrical restrictions than Takia. In its desire to have a high sonority stressed vowel, Takia will tolerate trochees instead of iambs. In contrast, Kiriwina will only tolerate trochees: i.e. *[mi(gi"la)] is banned, and so is *[vi("la)] (cf. [vi#("vila)] ‘woman’); in constraint terms, Trochee outranks *non-Hd (^) Ft/a,eo in Kiriwina. Kiriwina will not tolerate degenerate feet, either: ["waga], *[wa("ga)] ‘canoe’; *[mi("gi)la]. The contrast can be generalized to the rankings in (20).
(20) Interaction of sonority conditions with metrical conditions
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Further details of the analysis of Kiriwina are given in de Lacy (2004 Sec.4). For a particular striking example of a system in which sonority interacts with metrical conditions, see Crowhurst & Michael (2005).
12.4 Tone
The same constraint mechanism that was used with sonority also applies to the tonal hierarchy | High i Mid i Low |. The constraints proposed in de Lacy (2002b) are expressed with stringent form in (21). Precursors to these constraints include Goldsmith’s (1987) ‘Tone–accent attraction condition’, which favors accented syllables with specified tone over accented toneless syllables, and Jiang-King’s (1996:99) proposal that there is a tonal hierarchy | þUpper i –Raised | (see Yip 10.2.1) (also see Hayes 1995 Sec.7.1.3); for further discussion see Yip (2001a; 2002 Sec.3.9; 10.3.2).
(21) Tone-head, and -non-head constraints (after de Lacy 2002b)
The effect of both sets of constraints can be seen in Ayutla Mixtec. The foot is attracted to the left edge of a word, as seen in (22a). However, the foot will appear elsewhere if the ‘perfect toned foot’ can be produced: i.e. where the head has a high tone and the non-head has a low tone.
(22) Ayutla Mixtec tone-driven stress (data from Pankratz & Pike 1967)
Attraction of the foot head to a high-toned syllable can be dealt with by having *Hd (^) Ft/LM outrank Align-L(Ft,PrWd) and FtBin, as in tableau (23). To make candidates easier to read, forms like /ku¯nu`ra´/ are schematized as candidates as [ML("H)] and so on.
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markedness and positional faithfulness constraints. Both types seem neces- sary for many phenomena.
Tone and sonority?
The only interaction not discussed between tone, sonority, and prosody is between tone and sonority. In some languages, tone can only appear on sonorant coda consonants, but this type of restriction is often seen as an indirect relation between sonority and tone. In these cases, sonorants are assumed to be moraic while obstruents are not, and only moras can bear tone (see Gordon 2001 for recent discussion and references). I know of no other evidence that requires a direct relationship between sonority and tone. For example, there is no language in which low vowels must carry low tone while high vowels must be high-toned (this sort of restriction would make phonetic sense as there seems to be a correlation between low sonority and lower tone (e.g. for Thai, see Abramson 1962)). In constraint terms, there must be no constraint with the general form *son/tone, where son is a sonority level (e.g. *{a,eo}/Low, etc.).
12.5 Other prosodic levels
The theoretical proposals outlined above are not limited to feet. Some proposals allow sonority (and tone) to combine with heads and non-heads of any prosodic category (de Lacy 2002a, Zec 2003). Evidence for this view is presented here. Below the foot are the syllable and the mora. The head of the syllable is its nucleus (i.e. the segment dominated by the head mora), and the prefer- ence for high sonority elements in nuclei is well documented (Prince & Smolensky 2004, Zec 8.5.1). Similarly, the ‘non-head’ of the syllable (i.e. its margins) favors low sonority segments; this preference is typically evident in syllabification, but can also exert itself in neutralization and even foot placement (de Lacy 2001, Smith 2002, Topintzi 2006). The same is true for tone: as discussed in section 9.4, heads favor higher tone, and non-head moras favor lower tone. This is shown at the moraic level in the northern Min language Fuqing (Jiang-King 1996 Sec.3.3.2): only H and M tone can appear on head moras, and only L tone can appear on non-heads (i.e. monomoraic syllables can only have H or M tone, and bimoraic syllables can only have HL or ML contours). McGarrity (2003) shows the need for sonority constraints that refer to the foot level. Most languages with sonority-driven stress have no reported secondary stress, so it is often not clear whether the motivating con- straints refer to the head of the foot or PrWd. However, secondary stress avoids the least sonorous vowel [] in Yimas: [("tNkm)p(%Jawa)] ‘wild fowl’, *[("tJkm)(%pJa)wa]; cf. [("maman)(%takar)man] ‘land crab’, *[("maman)ta
(%karman)]; there is clearly need for *Hd Ft/ here as opposed to *Hd PrWd/ .
Crowhurst & Michael (2005) show the same for Nanti: sonority conditions can result in trochees instead of iambs even for non-head feet: e.g. [(%nabi)
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(gZi"ta)ksero] ‘it crushed it’, *[(%na%bi)(gZi"ta)ksero] (cf. [(i%pi)(ri%ni)te] ‘he sits’). In addition, for Kiriwina it is crucial that non-heads of feet are sensitive to sonority: stress in [("migi)la] does not fall at the right edge because the unstressed vowel in the foot (i.e. not unfooted unstressed vowels) ends up with a less sonorous segment. McGarrity’s general point is that in terms of sonority, secondary and primary stress are independent. A ranking such as || *HdFt/x » Align || will affect all stressed syllables, but || Align-R-HdPrWd » *HdFt/x » Align-R-Ft || will only affect secondary stressed syllables, while || *HdPrWd/x » Align-R-Ft » *HdFt/x || will only affect primary stressed syllables; all these types are attested. McGarrity (2003 Sec.4.2) also identifies Chamorro as having sonority-driven neutralization in secondary stressed syllables; this case is discussed in Section 12.6. Immediately above the foot is the Prosodic Word. The head of the Pros- odic Word is its main-stressed syllable (i.e. the segment dominated by the head mora of the head syllable of the head foot). Some languages place sonority and tone restrictions specifically on the head of the PrWd rather than the head of the foot. McGarrity (2003) identifies Axininca Campa as this type for sonority-driven stress (Payne 1990). Masset Haida provides an example for tone (Enrico 1991). As shown in (26), every syllable has either high or low tone, and iambic feet are arrayed from left to right; every syllable is parsed into a foot. As a visual aid, main-stressed syllables are given in bold. Main stress is attracted to the rightmost vowel with high tone. However, secondary stress makes no tone distinction, falling freely on low-toned vowels even when high-toned ones are available. Form (26d) is of special interest. While main stress falls on the rightmost high-toned syllable (i.e. [gwa´:N], not [a´:]), secondary stress falls on the low-toned [da], ignoring the high-toned [a´:]: i.e. *[(g——u%daN)(%a´-da) - (t’sa-"gwa´:N) - (%gan)]. In other words, the position of the head of the PrWd is influenced by tone, but foot heads are not. (26) Masset Haida tone-driven primary stress and tone-insensitive secondary stress
In de Lacy (2002a, 2004) I argued that ‘PrWd non-heads’, when restricted by constraints on foot heads, can be used to refer to the informal notion of ‘unstressed syllable’; the influence of sonority on unstressed syllables is discussed in Section 12.6. The same type of influences are seen above the PrWd, though they are clearer for tone than sonority. For example, the head of a Phonological Phrase in Digo attracts high tone (Kisseberth 1984, Goldsmith 1988:85). This is a case of stress-dependent tone, with the constraint *Head (^) PPh/L playing a decisive role. For Korean, Kim (1997) argues that every Major Phrase must contain at least one high tone and that no other high tones are permitted.
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