Visual Prosody by Martin Evertz

Author:Martin Evertz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Published: 2018-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

4.1.4Summary

The analysis in this section shows that canonical graphematic foot structures can reliably be identified by cues such as reduced graphematic syllables and c-letter geminates. Graphematic foot structure is essential for vowel quantity (de)coding and, connected with that, ambisyllabicity (de)coding. The optimality theoretic analysis of ambisyllabicity coding in German and English provided in this section illustrates the interaction of constraints promoting and blocking c-letter gemination. Finally, a quantitative analysis of the CELEX database confirms the regularity of ambisyllabicity coding in canonical bisyllabic g-feet in German and English.

The analysis provided in this section also shows that an indication of binary vowels by, for instance, g-diphthongs, is not necessary in canonical graphematic feet in English and German. By logical contraposition it is possible to deduce that the absence of c-gemination also means the absence of ambisyllabicity, cf. (13b). In words with a single consonant between two vowels, absence of ambisyllabicity entails the binarity of the first vowel.

This means that ‘length marker’, such as <h> in Kühe ‘cows’ or v-letter diphthongs as in Boote ‘boats’ are redundant in canonical word forms. In fact, those marking devices are less regular and less productive in canonical word forms (Primus 2010). It is thus sensible to assume that these markers have a different function. One function can be the optimization of syllable weight (for example in Kuh, See ‘sea, lake’, Ramers 1998: 30, cf. §4.2); another function can be the tendency to avoid homographs cf. Beten ‘praying’ vs. Beeten ‘patches’, wider ‘against’ vs. wieder ‘again’ and Iren ‘the Irish’ vs. Ihren ‘(politely) yours’ (Evertz & Primus 2013: 10). We will explore the use of such markers in the next section on non-canonical feet.

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