Re: i cant seem to understand mora

Codas in Latin are moraic?  Huh.  I havent studied latin verse, but i
would not have guessed that to be the case.  I know that codas are
moraic in Japanese...


On 12/30/07, Dirk Elzinga <dirk.elzinga@...> wrote:
> On Dec 30, 2007 5:32 PM, Reilly Schlaier <schlaier@...> wrote:
>
> > i cant quite get my head around the idea
> > why the onset consonant doesnt count
> > and why the coda is sometimes a mora and sometimes not
> >
>
> Yes, they are puzzles. It has been argued for one language (I think it was
> Arrernte) that onsets can be relevant in stress placement. IIRC, the first
> syllable is stressed unless it has no onset, in which case the second
> syllable is stressed. But don't quote me on this; I'm pretty fuzzy on the
> facts and a quick Google check didn't reveal any confirming or contradictory
> information.
>
> As for coda consonants being moraic or not; this is a genuine option allowed
> languages. For example, codas in Latin are moraic, but  codas in Shoshoni
> are not (Shoshoni is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken throughout much of the
> North American Great Basin; it is the language I do my field work on). It's
> usually very easy to tell if a language has moraic codas. If the stress
> pattern of a language is "quantity-sensitive" (that's the technical term),
> then stress will be attracted to heavy syllables. If the only syllables that
> attract stress are those with long vowels but not those with coda
> consonants, then codas are not moraic. This is exactly what happens in
> Shoshoni:
>
> nátsattàmahkànte 'tied up'
> óosàantò'ippeh 'rusty'
>
> (I'm using the practical orthography: <ts> is an affricate (alveolar for
> Western Shoshoni, interdental for Goshute), <hk> a voiceless velar
> fricative, and <e> a high central unrounded vowel; doubly written vowels and
> consonants are long)
>
> Stress in Shoshoni falls on odd-numbered moras, counting from the left edge.
> Note that while the geminate <tt> in 'tied up' closes the second syllable
> and opens the third, it doesn't make the second syllable heavy. In 'rusty',
> the long vowels are stressed because they are each two moras.
>
> Dirk
>

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

Reply