Nankina trochees

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the stress system in Nankina (a language of Papua New Guinea) cast in the framework of Optimality Theory (OT), initially set forth in Prince and Smolensky (1993). This pattern reflects binary trochaic feet constructed from the right edge leftward. A word-initial stress clash is taken to indicate the presence of a degenerate foot at the left edge of the word. It is argued that standard OT can handle the stress facts without costs since it is more conservative in its theoretical assumptions than are grid-based analyses. Our analysis shows that exceptional stress can be modeled by a grammar with standard constraints and that catalexis is helpful in analyzing Nankina as a trochaic system. The respective patterns provide evidence against the claim that onset can contribute to syllable weight and against HEAD DEPENDENCE, a positional faithfulness constraint which bans epenthetic material in prosodic heads