[Lingtyp] Language change and foot structure

Fri Aug 20 14:54:54 UTC 2021

According to my readings the past few nights, different dialects of Korean
appear to prefer either iambic or trochaic feet.
http://repository.tufs.ac.jp/bitstream/10108/90282/1/jaas094012_ful.pdf

My own interest here is whether foot type has an effect on the sizes of
ideophone/mimetic inventories in languages. Korean has at least 30,000
(pooling derivations and compounds) (Seoul dialect only??). Middle Korean
(and the current Seoul dialect) present iambic feet.

Jess Tauber

On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 5:08 AM Randy J. LaPolla <randy.lapolla at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Guillaume,
> No one said it was an absolute rule; it is an areal tendency that has been
> talked about for a long time. There is also no such thing as a single cause
> for all phenomena in a large and widely spread language family like this.
>
> Matisoff (2001) considers the sesqui-syllabic structure that results from
> the reduction of initial syllables in two syllable compounds where there is
> an iambic stress pattern an areal feature of Mainland Southeast Asian
> languages within what he calls the Indosphere (as opposed to the
> Sinosphere), but talks about the process as cyclical, and not uniform in
> all language groups.
>
> David Bradley (1980) gives a very good historical explanation for the type
> of language contact that might have led to Burmese having so many Mon
> characteristics, such as the iambic pattern.
>
> See also Donegan and Stampe (2004—a summary of work they had done on this
> since the 1970’s) on the iambic pattern as characteristic of SEAsia and its
> importance in understanding in the development of Munda.
>
> Bradley, David. 1980. Phonological Convergence Between Languages in
> Contact: Mon-Khmer Structural Borrowing in Burmese. *Proceedings of the
> Sixth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society*, pp. 258-267.
> (Republished in LaPolla, Randy J. (ed.), *Sino-Tibetan Linguistics:
> Critical Concepts in Linguistics, V. II: Language Contact and Areal
> Features,* 228-236. London & NY: Routledge.)
>
> Donegan, Patricia and Stampe, David. 2004. Rhythm and the synthetic drift
> of Munda. In Rajendra Singh (ed.), *The Yearbook of South Asian Languages
> and Linguistics <https://www.degruyter.com/serial/YSALL-B/html>,* 3-36.
> Berlin: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110179897.3
>
> Matisoff, James A. 2001. Genetic versus contact relationship: Prosodic
> diffusibility in South-East Asian languages. In A. Y. Aikhenvald & R. M. W.
> Dixon (eds.), *Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance,* 291-327.
> Randy
> ——
> Professor Randy J. LaPolla（罗仁地), PhD FAHA
> Center for Language Sciences
> Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences
> Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai Campus
> A401, Muduo Building, #18 Jinfeng Road, Zhuhai City, China
>
>
>
>
>
> On 19 Aug 2021, at 7:14 PM, Guillaume Jacques <rgyalrongskad at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Dear Randy and David,
>
> In the particular case of Trans-Himalayan/Sino-Tibetan, iambic stress
> patterns are found in several disconnected zones, and not exclusively in
> the south. It is attested in particular in some prefixing Kiranti languages
> (such as Khaling and Limbu), and in Gyalrongic languages, where an
> influence from Austro-asiatic is not possible (see Lai 2021 on the
> development of the prefixal chain in Khroskyabs). In addition, Baxter and
> Sagart (2014) argue, using evidence from loanwords into Vietic and Lakkia,
> that Old Chinese (the northernmost TH language) had presyllables (with an
> iambic stress pattern) until the Han dynasty.
>
> Guillaume
>
> References
> Baxter, William H. III & Laurent Sagart. 2014. Old Chinese: A new
> reconstruction. Oxford: Oxford University Press
> Lai, Yunfan. "Betrayal through obedience: on the history of the unusual
> inflectional chain in Siyuewu Khroskyabs: " *Linguistic Typology*, vol.
> 25, no. 1, 2020, pp. 79-122. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2021-2075
>
> Le jeu. 19 août 2021 à 04:06, Randy J. LaPolla <randy.lapolla at gmail.com>
> a écrit :
>
>> Hi Matt,
>> Similar to what David mentions, although it isn’t a single language,
>> within Sino-Tibetan there is a similar geographic difference, with northern
>> languages tending towards trochaic and southern languages tending towards
>> iambic, which we assume was due to influence from the Austro-Asiatic
>> languages in the south.
>>
>> Randy
>> ——
>> Professor Randy J. LaPolla（罗仁地), PhD FAHA
>> Center for Language Sciences
>> Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences
>> Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai Campus
>> A401, Muduo Building, #18 Jinfeng Road, Zhuhai City, China
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 18 Aug 2021, at 6:52 PM, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Matt,
>>
>> In colloquial Malay/Indonesian, some dialects are iambic while others are
>> trochaic; with just a few exceptions this follows a geographical pattern,
>> with final stress to the west, penultimate stress to the east.  So
>> presumably the kind of shift you are looking for must have taken place
>> here, in the course of the diversification of Malay/Indonesian dialects.
>>
>> As for the directionality of the shift: given that Malay originated in
>> the western part of the archipelago, where foot structure is iambic, one
>> might speculate that this was the original pattern, and that as the
>> language spread eastwards, some varieties switched to trochaic, most likely
>> under the influence of the local substrate languages, many of which have
>> trochaic structure.
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>> On 17/08/2021 22:07, Matthew Windsor wrote:
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Is anyone aware of a language where metrical/rhythmic structure has
>> clearly shifted from having right-headed (iambic) feet to left-headed
>> (trochaic) feet or vice versa? I’m studying a language variety where this
>> seems to be the case. It’s a quantity-sensitive system, so the change
>> mainly affects strings of light syllables. Any examples or suggested
>> resources would be helpful, thanks!
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> --
>>
>>
>>
>> *Matt Windsor*
>>
>> Linguistics & Translation Facilitator | SIL Americas, North
>>
>> Cell: 1-807-631-6656
>>
>> ᐅᐦᐅᐁᐧ ᐃᐦᑭᑐᐃᐧᐣ ᑮᐄᐧᔮᐦᓯᐃᐧ ᒦᓇ ᑭᑮᐱᐄᐧᒋᐊᔮᒥᑯᓈᐣ.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing listLingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.orghttp://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>
>> --
>> David Gil
>>
>> Senior Scientist (Associate)
>> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
>> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>> Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
>>
>> Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
>> Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
>> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81344082091
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing list
>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing list
>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>
>
>
> --
> Guillaume Jacques
>
> Directeur de recherches
> CNRS (CRLAO) - EPHE- INALCO
> https://scholar.google.fr/citations?user=1XCp2-oAAAAJ&hl=fr
> https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/295
> <http://cnrs.academia.edu/GuillaumeJacques>
> http://panchr.hypotheses.org/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20210820/5009ea83/attachment.htm>