Re: THEORY: final features, moras, and roots [was: it's what I do]

On Wed, 4 Oct 2000 20:39:06 +0100, Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
wrote:

>At 1:00 pm -0400 4/10/00, Togonakamane@AOL.COM wrote:
>[....]
>>yeah, exactly. sung Japanese is much more precise about saying all the
>>morae-- because the singing isn't so much about syllables, as it is about
>>beats/timing. In very careful speech, or singing, the word "shinjiteru"
>>(to believe in [a person]) is treated as "shi-n-ji-te-ru"... you hear the
>>morae.
>
>But that, surely, is treating the thing as _syllables_, not morae. As I
>understand it, mora is used as a unit of metrical time (or weight) in those
>languages which distinguish heavy & light syllables (I think some
>distinguish heavy, medium & light syllables).
This is the problem, I think, the specific definitions of mora and
syllable. In Greek and Classical Latin poetry, the mora is simply a unit of
duration. E.g.
         cu-pi:-di-ne:s-que
          1  2   1   2    1
-ne:s- has a both a long vowel and an s crammed into a 2-mora syllable;
there's no way to say how much of the syllable goes with the 1st mora of
the syllable and how much with the 2nd (unless you have Vergil or Catullus
reciting their stuff on tape, then you can count msecs!) I believe this is
what you're saying below.
Japanese is different -- the mora is primary, with a 1-to-1 correspondence.
However, Japanese also has syllables, or rather, the Japanese dialects each
have syllables. The "standard" dialect of Tokyo is very close to the "sung"
version (except where liberties have been taken to fit the melody, another
can of worms). In Tokyo, the accented syllable of a word is the one whose
1st mora is the last high-pitched mora in the word (there are complications
that I'm leaving out here.) When forming advebs from adjectives, the accent
typically shift to the preceding syllable. E.g. (upper case for high-
pitched sequence):
  oO-KI-i (adjective form)
  Oo-ki-ku (adverb form)
Other dialects .... let's not get into that, unless a real Japanese expert
shows up!
Anyway, I hope I haven't muddied the water even more!

Jeff Jones
Non-Japanese Non-Linguist

>
>In the Japanese example above the implication as far as I can see is that
>in very careful speech or singing we have five syllables.
>
>In Classical Latin (and the term originated in describing ancient Greek &
>Classical Latin prosody), e.g.
>
>syllables: ar-ma ui-rum-que ca-no:
>    morae: 2  1  1   2   1   1  2
>
>This has exactly seven syllables and exactly ten morae whether you speak
>very carefully, sing it, or just speak it 'normally'.   You cannot, e.g.
>split the two morae of _ar_ into two 'syllables' *"a-r" nor the two morae
>of _no:_ into *"no-o".  I don't understand the distinction between careful
>speech, singing and 'normal' sppech in this context.
>
>>in normal speech, you hear it as "shin-ji-te-ru", the syllables instead.
>
>This looks to me like the difference between formal speech and what Mark
>Line used to refer to as "allegro speech".  For example, in Brit English
>_primarily_ has four syllables in formal speech /'prajm@rIli/ but only
>three syllables in 'normal' or 'allegro' speech /'prajmrIli/.
>
>As far I can see, all that's being said is that in formal speech we have
>five syllables shi-n-ji-te-ru, whereas in allegro speech we have only four
>sylllables shin-ji-te-ru.  Or have I missed something, somwhere?
>
>[...]
>>treated in formal linguistics), never actual syallables. Sorry if my
language
>>was less than precise,
>
>Don't worry - I'm just trying to make sense of what you're trying to say
>about Japanese.
>
>>my Japanese teachers were more concerned with getting
>>across that you had to count morae than with the exact distinction between
>>mora and syllable,
>
>Maybe your Japanese teachers should be on the list to explain - they seem
>to have caused some confusion somewhere, as far as I can see ;)
>
>>and my linguistics terminology is thin in general, so I
>>tend to babble semi-correctly when I know anything at all in hopes of
Saying
>>Something Useful
>
>OK - I'm not getting at you personally.  I'm just trying to understand
>what's going on or what your Japanese teachers are trying to say.  And,
>hopefully, by arguing around the matter Something Uself, as you say, may
>come out of it   :)
>
>Hopefully, Dirk & Markus might help us out   ;)
>
>Ray.
>
>
>
>=========================================
>A mind which thinks at its own expense
>will always interfere with language.
>                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
>=========================================