final Q's Flashcards
Explain what a prosodic minimal pair is and how it is both similar to and different from a segmental minimal pair, using examples.
- prosodic minimal pairs will each have the same segments in the same linear order. however the stressed syllable will be the element that will differentiate the two
- both segmental and prosodic minimal pairs contrast two very similar words differing in only one element.
- Segmental minimal pairs will have one segment be different among the two, thereby the prosody must be identical between the words in order for it to be a true minimal pair where there is only one difference between the two
- for example, [paet] and [baet] are segmental minimal pairs since they differ in only one segment, [p] vs [b]. ‘trusty vs trus’tee are prosodic minimal pairs since the segments are identical between them while the prosody is different among them
Explain whether stress is predictable or not in English, and what consequences this would have for an OT analysis of stress in English.
-given we have prosodic minimal pairs in english, like ‘trusty and trus’tee, we see that english has an unpredictable stress pattern
this means that stress is stored in the underlying form
-this means that in an OT analysis for english, faithfulness must outrank markedness constraints since faithfulness guards contrast
[I give you a sample language like Language A, B, C, or D in question 3 of the Week 9-10 handout.] Describe the pattern of stress in this language.
be specific (eg. are you counting from left or right?)
you can use things like even numbered, and odd numbered
you might even modify not only the direction of counting but the starting point itself and say “stress every even numbered syllable starting from the 2nd syllable and counting to the right”
[I give you a description of a stress pattern, e.g. “Stress always occurs on the even-numbered syllables, counting from the right.,” and a couple of example words, like [kutamalufina] and [kitama].] Indicate which syllables would actually be stressed in these words, based on this description of a pattern.
should be self explanatory
[I give you a full prosodic hierarchy for a word.] Write the shorthand IPA transcription version of this word, indicating its prosodic structure, and explain it in prose. [E.g. for the prose explanation, you would just say something like “this word has trochaic feet, and the phonological word has its head on the left.”]
(‘ku.ta)(,ma.luf)
[I give you a sample word, like [kutamaluf], and a description of its prosodic structure, like “trochaic feet and a leftmost phonological word type.”] Write out the full prosodic structure (show the full prosodic hierarchy) of this word.
practise drawing this. include nucleus, onset, rhyme, syllables, feet and PW
[I give you the shorthand IPA transcription of a word, like one of the words in #4 on the week 9-10 handout.] Explain what type of feet and what type of phonological word is being shown.
explain reasoning behind foot type and Pword type
[I give you a few words from a language, with their stressed syllables marked, like in #5 on the Week 9-10 handout.] Explain whether this language uses trochaic or iambic feet and how you know.
look at the 2 syllables on the right and 2 syllables on the left of each word. which side of pairs from both words share a foot type/are consistent? then decide trochaic/iambic
[I give you a description of a basic stress pattern in a language, like “Language X has trochaic feet and a leftmost phonological word type.”] Explain what the ranking of FootType=Trochee, FootType=Iamb, PWdType=Leftmost, and PWdType=Rightmost would have to be in this language and why.
The ranking for this example must be
FootType=Trochee, PWdType=Leftmost»_space;FootType=Iamb, PWdType=Rightmost
since we see trochaic feet as opposed to Iambic, meaning trochaic must outrank iambic feet, and we see left-most phonological word types over right most phonological word types, meaning leftmost must outrank rightmost. We cannot rank FootType and PWdType against each other since they are not directly related to each other, so given FootType=Trochee and PWdType=Leftmost are not violated, we can assume they both equally rank as the highest constraints in this scenario
[I give you a specific ranking of constraints, like FootType=Trochee, PWdType=Leftmost»_space; FootType=Iamb, PWdType=Rightmost.] Explain what the basic stress pattern would be in a language that had this constraint ranking and why.
This ranking would give us a language with trochaic feet and with the left-most foot being the head of the P-word. Since we see FootType=Trochee»_space; FootType = Iamb then we will see trochaic feet surface as opposed to iambic. Each language will rank one of these two constraints as higher than the other causing one to be more likely to surface than the other. Since we see PWdType=Leftmost»_space; PWdType=Rightmost we will see left-headed prosodic words surface as opposed to right-headed prosodic words.
[I give you a hypothetical output candidate, something like [(ˌku.ta).(ˈma.luf)] or [ku.(ta.ˈma).luf], and a set of constraints, like FootType=Trochee and PWdType=Leftmost. NB: This could also include constraints that we haven’t yet talked about in class but that appear in the “Master List of Stress-Related Constraints” on the Week 9-10 handout.] Explain how and why this candidate satisfies or violates each of these constraints. (“How” = something like “this candidate violates FootType=Iamb two times”; “Why” = something like “…because it has two feet, each of which has a head on the left, and this constraint assigns violation marks to each foot that doesn’t have a head on the right”)
reference sheet of constraints and understand them
[I give you a tableau, with the constraints listed and ranked, various possible output candidates shown, and the optimal candidate NOT marked.] Explain what the optimal candidate would be based on this tableau and why.
fill out violation marks and figure out which candidate is optimal
Explain why it would ever be possible for a foot to have just one syllable in it, if FootBin is a universal constraint.
bc we have ParseSyll which can be ranked over FootBin which would require every syllable to be parsed into a foot, regardless of whether it is binary or not
Explain what kind of evidence linguists have used to motivate the concept of the mora.
labels aren’t arbitrary they’re about predicting something in data.
useful in predicting the stress, specifically in languages that are weight sensitive
if a syllable has 2 moras, it predicts the stress of the syllable as being heavy. having more moras can predict where the stress goes in a word
[I give you language data like that in #15 on the Week 9-10 handout.] Is this language weight sensitive or not, and how do you know?
if there are unstressed heavy syllables then the language is not weight sensitive
if there are stressed heavy syllables but they follow the same pattern of stress as the unstressed syllables (ie. the pattern of stress makes the heavy syllables just “happen” to be stressed to) then it is undetermined and we will need more data in order to conclude this or not
- should be able to conclude this from looking at stressed syllables and seeing if they stress CVC or not
[I give you a small dataset, like one of the ones in Section J on the Week 9-10 handout.] What kind of feet are used in this language, and what is your evidence? [or, what is the primary stress location and what is your evidence? or, does this language allow degenerate feet and what is your evidence? etc., etc.]
practice looking at diff data sets in the handout and assigning their pattern
understanding how to group the words based on their foot preference and figure out if they have degenerate feet
