Stress as a morphological edge Phonology, CVCV, Government Phonology, stress, edge, Proto-Germanic Enguehard, Guillaume (Paris 7, LLF) 0. In this paper, I deal with the representation of stress in CVCV (Lowenstamm, 1996). In order to account for various stress-sensitive phenomena, Larsen (1998) and Scheer (2000) proposed that stress inserts a CV unit on the right (1a) or left (1b) of the stressed nucleus (underlined). This CV unit is then identified by spreading of an adjacent segment. (1)a.
b. C V [C V] C V
C V [C V] C V C V
f a
r ɪ
t o
p i t
In this paper, I argue that stress is not a phonological primitive: it results from a morphological edge. 1. I base my analysis on the representation of Verner's Law proposed in Scheer (2000). Following Verner's Law, Early Proto-Germanic fricatives are voiced (e.g. *pHtēr > *fader 'father'), except after stress (e.g. *bhreH2ter > *brōþer 'brother') (Verner, 1977). Scheer argues that Proto-Germanic post-tonic fricatives avoid voicing by spreading to an empty CV inserted by stress on the right of the tonic nucleus (2). According to this analysis, voiceless fricatives are underlying geminates (notice that Proto-Germanic consonants can be long, except voiceless fricatives f, þ, and h). (2) C V C V [C V] C V C V b
r ō θ e r *brōþer 'brother'
2. However, this analysis does not account for post-coda voiceless fricatives (e.g. *erþō'earth' ; *gulþa- 'gold' ; *fenþan- 'find', etc...). Indeed, these involve two consecutive empty nuclei (3). But following the Empty Category Principle (KLV, 1990), an empty nucleus can remain unrealized iff it is properly governed or final. Consequently, the representation in (3) is ill-formed. (3) PG || C V C V₁ [C V₂] C V e r θ ō *erþō- 'earth'
First, I show that the configuration in (3) cannot be explained by spreading of the posttonic coda sonorant to the following V-position (4a), as it was first assumed for Finnish in Pöchtrager (2001). Indeed, such a solution would predict also post-coda geminates that are not attested in Proto-Germanic: *ldd, *rbb, etc... Second, I argue that the only possible solution is that V₁ in (3) is a Final Empty Nucleus. That predicts that the empty CV unit situated on its right is an edge (4b). The representation of edges as empty CV units was first proposed in Lowenstamm (1999) and Scheer (2000). (4)a.
b. PG
PG FEN
C V C V₁ [C V₂] C V e r
C V C V₁ - [C V₂] - C V e r
θ ō
θ ō
This prediction is confirmed by diachronic data (5). Indeed, the position of the stressrelated CV in Proto-Germanic (highlighted by voiceless fricatives) and the position of the former Proto-Indo-European internal boundaries coincide. (5) PIE
PGrm
Gloss
*er-t-
*erþō-
earth
*pr-tu-
*ferþu-
firth
*ghel-to-
*gulþa-
gold
References Kaye, J., Lowenstamm, J. and Vergnaud, J.-R. (1990) ‘Constituent Structure and Government in Phonology’, Phonology, 7(2), pp. 193–231. Larsen, U. B. (1998) ‘Vowel length, Raddoppiamento Sintattico and the selection of the definite article in Italian’, in Sauzet, P. (ed.) Langues et Grammaire II-III: Phonologie. Paris: University Paris 8, pp. 87–102. Lowenstamm, J. (1996) ‘CV as the Only Syllable Type’, in Durand, J. and Laks, B. (eds) Current Trends in Phonology Models and Methods. University of Salford: European Studies Research Institute, pp. 419–442. Lowenstamm, J. (1999) ‘The beginning of the Word’, in Rennison, J. R. and Kühnammer, K. (eds) Phonologika 1996: Syllables !?. The Hague: Thesus, pp. 153–166. Pöchtrager, M. (2001) Finnish Consonant Gradation. MA dissertation [ms]. University of Vienna. Scheer, T. (2000) De la Localité, de la Morphologie et de la Phonologie en Phonologie. HDR dissertation [ms]. University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis. Verner, K. (1877) ‘Eine Ausnahme der ersten Lautverschiebung’, Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der Indogermanischen Sprachen, 23(2), pp. 97–130.
