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Re: quantity triggered vs. quantity sensitive stress

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Tuesday, November 17, 1998, 3:55
Kristian Jensen wrote:
> The situation is quite different in Lumanesian. It appears that > stress is what triggers a heavy syllable and not the other way > around. The reason for this is that, unlike quantity sensitive > stress languages, stress in Lumanesian lexemes is consistently > penultimate (with the exception of monosyllabic lexemes). > Furthermore, this stressed syllable is consistently a heavy CVC > syllable (whereas light syllables are CV only).
Hmm, sounds interesting. I don't know if there *are* any such langs, but I can see how one would emerge. Suppose that an earlier stage of Lumanesian had lots of closed syllables, in fact, it had very few open syllables. Furthermore, stress was consistently penultimate. Later, unstressed syllables lost their final consonant. OR another explanation: in an earlier stage, stress was consistently antepenultimate, and there were no closed syllables. Later, the penultimate vowel was lost (thus, *taKA?eta --> *taKA?ta), thus making the previously antepenultimate syllable become penultimate, and closed. -- "It has occured to me more than once that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the invention of free will." - "Lord Leto II" (Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert) http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files/ ICQ #: 18656696 AOL screen-name: NikTailor