[Lingtyp] languages without feet?

[Mark Post]

Hi folks,

Just briefly, I think Enfield’s recent analysis of prosodic structure in Lao

https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198865681.003.0007

…which I think also holds for Thai, suggests that while it may be possible to handle prosodic phenomena at the word level – basically by proliferating word “types” – it’s more desirable to handle prosodic phenomena at the sub-word level – so it’s not really a case of shoehorning the data into a particular model for at least those lgs.

I’m not sure whether or not there are languages for which that would not be true – i.e. in which assuming a foot level not only adds nothing, but leads to a less insightful or unworkable analysis. To me, that’s a more interesting question than whether or not we have to identify a foot distinct from syllable and word for any given language to sustain a particular prosodic analysis (lack of positive evidence not generally being taken as negative evidence in theorizing about UG).

Cheers
Mark

From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Kirsten <kirstenculhane at gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, 7 May 2023 at 00:03
To: Adam James Ross Tallman <ajrtallman at utexas.edu>
Cc: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] languages without feet?
Hi Adam and everyone else,

The Strict Layer Hypothesis assumes that foot structure —as for other prosodic domains — is present in all languages. I get the impression, however, that the lack of evidence or foot structure in many languages hasn't been problematised in the same way as for the syllable and word - e.g. Hyman's analysis of Gokana, Sheiring et al's re: Vietnamese (one exception is Özçelik 2017's paper The Foot is not an obligatory constituent of the Prosodic Hierarchy: “stress” in Turkish, French and child English).

Anyway, underlying much of the discussion here is ultimately the question of what constitutes evidence for foot structure, and what is the relationship between foot structure and stress. I think there's good reasons not to treat stress as evidence for foot structure (you can account for stress without foot structure, and empirical evidence for stress both complex and lacking for many languages). This issue is the focus of my current paper in Linguistic typology, and is discussed in more detail in my forthcoming PhD thesis.

All the best,
Kirsten

On Sat, 6 May 2023 at 11:21, Adam James Ross Tallman <ajrtallman at utexas.edu<mailto:ajrtallman at utexas.edu>> wrote:
Thanks everyone for your responses (Ian and David + private responders),

Great leads to look at!

Here's another question ... have there been any phonologists who have proposed or assume that all languages have feet. I ask because I've had reviewer questions and conference questions that seem to presuppose this to be the case. I'd like to see the original arguments, if there are any.

best,

Adam







On Sat, May 6, 2023 at 7:20 AM Ian Maddieson <ianm at berkeley.edu<mailto:ianm at berkeley.edu>> wrote:
Hi all,

There must be many languages in which the concept of a foot is not found to be relevant
(see Sun-Ah Jun’s chapter "Prosodic Typology: By Prominence Type, Word prosody, and Macro-rhythm" in
Prosodic Typology II (edited by Sun-Ah) for some discussion. The notion of a foot does not seem to
useful for (standard)  French, Korean, Yorùbá, among many others, though it can be pressed into service
in languages such as Thai and Mandarin. Since it’s an abstract notion, I’m not sure what phonetic
data would be capable of providing direct evidence either for or against the notion of a foot, though
if for example, vowel length was considered important in foot construction, data could confirm the
presence of greater length where it’s presence had been invoked to justify foot structure.

Ian


On May 5, 2023, at 09:16, Adam James Ross Tallman <ajrtallman at utexas.edu<mailto:ajrtallman at utexas.edu>> wrote:

Hello all,

In Caroline Féry's excellent Prosodic Structure and Intonation, she describes a class of "phrase languages", identified as languages whereby there isn't much going on at the level of the prosodic word.

I was wondering if anyone had *described* explicitly a language where the same thing could be said of feet (neither iambic or trochaic)? Or perhaps even more radically, not just that the feet don't do much, but that they aren't there at all?

Perhaps there's lots  of cases where feet haven't been proposed, are there any cases where they had been proposed, but then further research (perhaps some phonetic study) found that there was no evidence for them?

best,

Adam

--
Adam J.R. Tallman
Post-doctoral Researcher
Friedrich Schiller Universität
Department of English Studies
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Ian Maddieson

Department of Linguistics
University of New Mexico
MSC03-2130
Albuquerque NM 87131-0001






--
Adam J.R. Tallman
Post-doctoral Researcher
Friedrich Schiller Universität
Department of English Studies
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