Re: Typology and verse-forms

On Mar 4, 2004, at 8:47 AM, Peter Bleackley wrote:

> At 14:44 04/03/2004 +0000, you wrote:
>> Peter Bleackley:
>> > I was wondering whether there was any correlation between the
>> typology of
>> a
>> > language and the verse-forms it employs.
>>
>> The is a programmatic but fascinating article on this by Patricia
>> Donnegan and David Stampe in CLS (Proc. of the nth regional meeting
>> of the Chicago Linguistic Society) from c. 1983. For the full
>> reference, I suggest either Google or Dirk; each is pretty reliable!
>>
>> Dirk might also know whether Donnegan & Stampe took that work further
>> subsequently.
>
> Alas, "Donnegan Stampe" is a GoogleWhack, and leads not to the desired
> reference, but to an article about Sprachbund in SE Asia written by
> someone
> else entirely. Of Dirk I know nothing.
Dirk would be me. Alas, I must disappoint And and confess my ignorance
of this paper. I even went to the University Library to find it since
the topic intrigued me, but it was in the parasession volume (CLS 19),
which our library doesn't have.

On a somewhat related note, a paper appeared in the journal _Language_
about 8 years ago entitled "A Parametric Theory of Poetic Meter". The
authors are Paul Kiparsky and Kristin Hanson. The abstract reads:

"This paper presents a parametric theory of poetic meter which defines
a set of formally possible meters based on the prosodic constituents
and categories given by universal grammar, and a functional principle
that selects an optimal meter for a particular language on the basis of
its lexical phonological structure. We support this theory by a
detailed analysis of a favored meter in Finnish, a stress-based meter
in which syllable count varies in accord with constraints on syllable
weight, and show why partially similar meters are likewise favored in
English."

So it sounds like something close to what you're looking for.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga
Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie