Re: Stress placement systems

Ray:

You might want to point out the errors in the Greek entry to the
maintainers of the database. If the database is to be at all useful,
it should be checked and re-checked by people who are knowledgeable. I
notice that their source for many of the stress patterns is Hayes
1995. I find this rather ironic, since Hayes has this to say about
persons wanting to make use of the data found in his book: "...
readers conducting their own research in metrical theory should be
warned that as a reporter of other people's data, I am fallible, and
they are therefore urged to consult the original secondary sources
..., or if possible to find a native speaker consultant. Future
researchers who cite this book as a data source without bothering to
consult and cite the original references will hear from my lawyer."

That last was probably written tongue-in-cheek, but it is a fair
point, and one which should be made to the maintainers of the
database.

For what it's worth, I just looked in Hayes 1995, and of Ancient Greek
he says (p 181): "Ancient Greek [has Fijian-like stress] in the
approach taken in Sauzet 1989 and Golston 1989. Their derivations
include a considerable tonal component as well, as Ancient Greek was a
pitch accent language. For an alternative, purely metrical approach,
see Steriade 1988b." (Fijian has a system in which a word-final heavy
syllable is stressed, else the penultimate syllable.)

According to Hayes, in Modern Greek "Main stress is lexically
determined; limited to one of the last three syllables." (p 204)

Dirk

On 9/19/06, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
> Philip Newton wrote:
> > On 9/19/06, Sanghyeon Seo <sanxiyn@...> wrote:
> >
> >> http://www.cf.ac.uk/psych/ssd/index.html
> >>
> >> It introduces a systematic way to describe stress systems.
> >
> >
> > Oooh, shiny.
>
> In places, maybe.
>
> I notice it says of Latin: "23/3  2 if heavy, else 3 if heavy, else 3"
> (The context makes it clear that 2 and 3 mean next to last and third
> from last respectively (penultimate & antepenultimate).
> Now maybe I'm getting senile, but can anyone explain how this is
> different from: '2 if heavy, else 3'?
>
> On Classical Greek we read the primary *stress* is: "12/2R". I
> understand this to mean "on last syllable if heavy, else on next to last
> if heavy, else next to last".
>
> To put it politely, this is rubbish - because:
> 1. Ancient Greek did not, as far as we know, have word stress; there
> possibly was phrasal stress, but we can merely guess how that might have
> worked.
> 2. It is clear that ancient Greek words had *pitch* accent. The pitch was:
>   (a) *not* dependent upon syllable quantity, but *solely on vowel length*
>   (a) high pitch could occur on any one of the vowels in the last
> *three* syllables, according to certain rules.
> 3. The modern Greek stress accent occurs (with very few exceptions) on
> the same syllable as the ancient Attic & Koine pitch accent(1). This is
> a strong indication IMHO that there was no separate word stress to
> interfere with the process whereby pitch gave way to stress.
>
> (1) In fact even for ancient Greek we know the pitch accent for only the
> Attic, Epic and Aeolic (conventionally, other dialects are usually
> printed according to the Attic system). The Koine Greek of the
> Hellenistic period used the same pitch accent as Attic Greek.
>
> There is a further cryptic sentence added to the description of ancient
> Greek, namely: "Pitch accent interacts with tones". I do not know what
> the writer means; Greek did not have a tonal system like Mandarin,
> Cantonese, Vietnamese etc. Nor do I understand how it is supposed to be
> related to the question of stress.
>
> I'm afraid the Greek entry makes me take the whole thing with a pinch of
> salt. Certainly, I think anyone using the database would be well advised
> to cross check for the languages they are interested in.
>
> BTW the entry for Welsh is correct  :)
>
> --
> Ray
> ==================================
> ray@carolandray.plus.com
> http://www.carolandray.plus.com
> ==================================
> Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
> There's none too old to learn.
> [WELSH PROVERB}
>

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