超音段音韻:節律、聲調及重音研究

The course will be based on chapters 9 to 11 of the fourth edition of Understanding Phonology (2017, Carlos Gussenhoven & Haike Jacobs, Wiley) as well as selected passages from the literature. 1. Above the segment. We will discuss syllable structure, including the distinctions between rhymes and onsets as well as the mora structure in rhymes, in a typological perspective (chapter 9 in UP). Students will become aware of the pervasive role of the syllable in segmental phonology, in addition to its role in the distribution of stress and tone. 2. Tone. Tones form a third type of segment by the side of vowels and consonants, but where vowels and consonants appear sequentially in phonological structures, tones line up in parallel with them. Functionally, tones have the same kinds of roles as vowels and consonants. Thus, together with the other two classes of segments, they can make up the phonological representations of words, as in Mandarin, though not in English. Also, they can function as morphological affixes, as in Basque, where a tone can represent the plural suffix, or be used in syntax, marking adverbial clauses as distinct from main clauses, as happens in Persian. Also, they can show up as morphemes with specific discoursal meanings, as in English. Tones are frequently subject to phonological rules of assimilation, deletion, and insertion (chapter 10 in UP). 3. Stress. Stress stands out as a phonological phenomenon: it is the only obligatory element. This means that if one word of a language has stress, all words have it. No language has been reported all of whose words must contain a H-tone, or the vowel [o]. Words in languages with stress that appear to lack stress are not words in the intended sense of being able to serve as an Utterance (cf. the ‘weak forms’ of English). The percentage of languages with stress has been estimated at 50%. Stress systems of languages appear to have rule-based stress locations, with varying proportions of exceptions to these rules. Those rules appear to refer to the same parameters, which create foot structure, where the foot is the phonological constituent ranking immediately above the syllable. The obligatoriness of stress derives from its identity: the head of a foot. That is, a language’s footing is ‘obligatory’. Footing has been successfully described in Optimality Theory (chapter 11 in UP) 4. The Prosodic Hierarchy. The mora, the syllable, and the foot are phonological constituents. Above them are the Pword (prosodic word, or phonological word), the Pphrase (phonological phrase), the IP (intonational phrase) and the Utterance. Each of these may have a role to play in defining the context of postlexical phonological rules. Morphosyntax-to-Phonology Mapping is an ongoing area of research (chapter 12 in UP). 5. English intonation. We will discuss the structure of English intonation, and base it on the analysis of examples in a small spoken corpus.