Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 85. kötet (1983)
Tanulmányok - Utasi-McRobbie, Zita: Adjacent Stress in Relation to Overlength 45
Adjacent Stresses in Relation to Overlength 0. Clarification of the phenomenon of three degrees of length within the framework of metrical theory has recently been attempted by A. Prince (1980). His investigations focussed on the systematic properties of the third (overlong) degree (henceforth Q3) in the light of a foot-based theory. These systematic properties, as Prince describes them, are seven in number: i. Q3 occurs only in stressed syllables ; ii. any final syllable that bears word-stress is overlong (from this it follows that all monosyllables are overlong); iii. a Q3 syllable seems to invite an immediately following stress ; iv. from the sequencing constraints of Q2 and Q3 segments (I. Lehiste 1965), it follows that overlength is a phonological property of syllables. In Prince's framework overlength is a metrical property of syllables ; assuming that the nuclear tone is realized over the unit foot, the foot-hood of the Q3 syllable captures the whole contour ; vi. in grade alternation the principal effect of the strong grade is to assign foot to syllables (syllables with complex rhymes — VV, VC, WC — will end up overlong); vii. the appearance of Q3 in the weak grade, in the case of conflation (loss of medial С gives # [F[<TCW]]), becomes understandable (536—537). Prince's conclusions, which are based upon a thorough analysis of Estonian quantity relations, affirm that these systematic properties of Q3 are the consequences of the fact that Q3 syllables are feet in metrical structure. This follows directly from the essential assumption of the metrical theory of stress (M. Liberman & A. Prince 1977). According to this, distinctions of relative prominence reflect the binary branching relational structure that organizes a string of syllables into a hierarchy of phonological units (Prince 1980 : 518). A foot (or a stress-foot, cf. Selkirk 1980) is a metrical category intermediate between the syllable and the word.1 Within the foot the metrically strongest syllable is stressed (Prince 1980, 522). 0.1. To exemplify the metrical structure of Estonian words, Prince's examples (529—30) are reproduced as on p. 46. From a study of these structures it becomes evident what it is that constitutes the difference between various degrees of length. For certainly Q3 is the metrically strongest syllable ; it is a foot (not only part of a foot) and naturally occurs in the stressed syllables only. In addition Prince formulates the attractive and convenient Basic Grade Principle rule, which is supposed to account for the fact that although Г (foot) generally tends to be disyllabic, in this spe-XE. Selkirk (1980) refers to these as prosodic rather than metrical categories, cf. pp. 563 fn.
