Re: quantity triggered vs. quantity sensitive stress

Nik Taylor wrote:

>Matt Pearson wrote:
>> Well, I don't know.  But it's certainly quite natural for
>> stress to affect the phonetic shape of syllables.  In some
>> African languages (I'm thinking specifically of Setswana) the
>> vowels in penultimate stressed syllables are consistently
>> lengthened.
>
>Indeed, in English, stressed syllables tend to be somewhat
>longer, and higher-pitched, than unstressed syllables, altho
>stress isn't the only thing that affects length, as vowels
>followed by voiceless obstruents in the same syllable tend to be
>shorter as well (e.g., [b&:d] vs. [b&t]).
>
Actually, that's not entirely correct as I understand English
stress. Stress does not affect syllable length in English, rather it
is the other way around - syllable length can trigger stress. The
rules for English stress is EXTREMELY complex. But to make a VERY
*simplified* _generalization_ about stress in English lexemes;
Stress is generally placed on the right-handmost heavy syllable. In
words without heavy syllables, stress is placed on the first
syllable of disyllabic lexemes or on the antepenultimate syllable of
lexemes longer than two syllables. English stress can thereby occur
almost in any syllable in a word provided the right conditions of
vowel length are there to support it. One would have to deduct that
stress does not trigger longer syllables in English, but rather
longer syllables can trigger stress.

 The situation is quite different in Lumanesian where stress and
syllable length is consistently on the penultimate syllable. One
would therefore have to deduct that it is stress that triggers
longer syllables in Lumanesian.

Regards,
-Kristian- 8-)