Blurb:

The first half of Chapter 1 introduces three components of the proposed approach to metrical stress theory: Weak Bracketing (Hyde 2002), Optimal Mapping (Hyde 2002), and Relation-Specific Alignment (Hyde 2012a). Weak Bracketing is a departure from the standard Weak Layering (Itô and Mester 1992) approach to prosodic organization. Its key characteristic is that it requires exhaustive parsing of syllables into feet but it allows two feet to share a syllable. The Optimal Mapping approach to constructing the metrical grid represents a departure from the standardly assumed one-to-one correspondence between feet and stress (Selkirk 1980). Optimal Mapping allows feet to occur without grid entries and even allows them to share grid entire in some circumstances. Relation-Specific Alignment is an alternative to the original Generalized Alignment (McCarthy and Prince 1993) formulation for alignment constraints. By targeting misalignment only in specific structural contexts, Relation-Specific Alignment is able to produce the essential directional parsing effects while avoiding some of Generalized Alignment’s more significant difficulties.


The second half of Chapter 1 presents the typology of quantity-insensitive stress patterns assumed throughout the book, the typology used to evaluate both the proposed approach and competing approaches. The typology, presented in terms of mirror-image iambic and trochaic stress patterns, is consistent with three key generalizations. First, in mirror image patterns with neither clash nor lapse, both members of the pair are attested. Second, in mirror image patterns with either clash or lapse, at most one member of the pair is attested. Finally, attested patterns with clash or lapse always have stress on the initial syllable, always leave the final syllable stressless, or both.


Topics include: 1.1 Weak Layering and Weak Bracketing; 1.2 Mapping to the Grid; 1.3 Generalized Alignment and Relation-Specific Alignment; 1.4 Typological Generalizations; 1.5 Overview; 1.6 A Note on Tableaux