| ROA: | 404 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Tiberian Hebrew Phrase-final Stress-shift Blocking and Strictly Non-Sequential Optimality Theory |
| Authors: | Henry Churchyard |
| Comment: | 19 pages (dissertation extract) |
| Length: | 19 |
| Abstract: | Tiberian Hebrew Phrase-final Stress-shift Blocking and Strictly Non-Sequential Optimality Theory Henry Churchyard University of Texas at Austin In Tiberian Biblical Hebrew, a number of separate and independent phonological processes which result in non-default surface stress positionings (i.e. "stress shifts") are all blocked from applying within words that receive the higher-level prosodic prominence which is regularly assigned to the last word within each Hebrew phonological phrase. This generalization can be explained within a traditional theory of sequential derivations, but there does not seem to be any very satisfactory way to account for it within a strictly non-serial version of Optimality Theory. The phenomenon can technically be handled using Sympathy, but here Sympathy would not be used in order to account for opacity, and in fact would be misused -- that is, used merely as a formal device that would allow sneaking in an intermediate derivational form (the Sympathy candidate) between input and output. And such a pseudo-Sympathy account would still not be as insightful and explanatory as a traditional sequential account, leaving Hebrew phrase-final stress-shift blocking as an unresolved problem for strictly non-serial Optimality Theory. |
| Type: | Paper/tech report |
| Area/Keywords: | |
| Article: | Version 1 |