This paper investigates the acoustic correlates of word-level stress and phrase-level focus-related prominence in Mankiyali, a highly endangered Indo-Aryan language spoken in Northwest Pakistan that utilizes a weight-sensitive stress system. Of the acoustic properties measured (duration, f0, intensity, spectral tilt, and vowel quality), duration was the only feature found to robustly and consistently correlate with word-level stress across syllable types. In contrast, phrase-level focus-related prominence corresponded to an amplification of all five acoustic features measured. Given that vowel duration serves a vital role in preserving lexical contrast in Mankiyali, these findings present difficulties for a strong version of the Functional Load Hypothesis, which claims that acoustic properties bearing a high functional load in a language will not be used to mark prominence. In addition, results support an analysis of Mankiyali’s stress system as having five distinct levels of weight, a pattern which is extremely rare, if not unattested, elsewhere in the world’s languages.

Mismatches in weight criteria across weight-sensitive processes within individual languages present difficulties for theories of moraic structure, particularly regarding coda weight. Previous accounts, which stipulate that codas are variably moraic to account for the typological variation in the weight status of CVC for primary stress, make incorrect predictions for the status of CVC in other weight-sensitive phenomena, including tone, word minimality and secondary stress, among others. This article proposes a theory of Uniform Moraic Quantity coupled with a new syllable weight metric as a solution, which captures CVC’s flexible weight status while maintaining the cross-linguistic moraicity of codas and avoiding the incorrect predictions that frustrate the standard variable-weight approach.

What is the lexicon’s role in licensing the selection of phonologically-marked structures in Old English verse? Specifically, what is its role in the avoidance of certain nominal compounds in verse, even though the same compounds are used apparently freely in prose (Terasawa 1994)? Using a simulation of the Old English lexicon, we offer a statistical analysis of the poetic use of nominal compounds compared to the availability of relevant prosodic structures in the ambient language. In the process, we unify Terasawa’s separate constraints and demonstrate a new way of addressing the complex interplay between Old English prosody and the structure of Old English alliterative meter. Our results endorse Terasawa’s position: We find that the dispreference for nominal compounds of the XX-LX type is a general but noncategorical property of Old English. We attribute their highly restricted usage in verse to the demands of poetic diction and their incompatibility with the metrical templates that scops and scribes replicate. Additionally, while syllable weight factors into metrical organization, it does so less for stress placement, which remains morphologically grounded; this asymmetry in the ranking value of weight between poetry and prose is considered briefly in the context of the Old English monastic scribal training.

Adjectival syllable count, often used to predict English comparatives more versus -er, is of little help in predicting the comparatives of adjectives ending in <y>, pronounced /i/, here called the y-adjectives. Examples of y-adjectives include silly and worthy. This article considers whether the phonemic segment count (segment count) and penultimate syllable weight (penultimate weight) of y-adjectives may serve as alternatives to syllable count in predicting more versus -er. The segment count and penultimate weight of relevant y-adjective tokens from a set of diachronic corpora are studied, alongside the tokens’ morphological complexity and period of occurrence in two separate, parallel sets of mixed-effects models. Syllabification principles for penultimate weight coding differentiate the two sets of modelling. Findings converge on segment count as a predictor of the comparative form, while the role of morphological complexity remains less clear, emerging significantly from one set of modelling but not the other. A rethinking of adjectival length based on segment count is advanced for our understanding of y-adjective comparatives. Discussed also are downstream implications of variant syllabification theories on accounts of y-adjective comparatives, together with insights shed on morphophonological intersections and the potential place of English y-adjective comparatives within the ambit of English alternations.

Hayes & Kaun (1996) argue that the mapping of syllables onto a metrical grid in textsetting is sensitive to natural duration, not just categorical weight (heavy or light). Most of their evidence, however, derives the final lengthening effects, which admit of another possible analysis (Halle 2004). Drawing on a corpus of 2,371 popular songs in English, I confirm that even when one controls for final lengthening and other factors, the setting of syllables to a discrete grid is sensitive to natural duration. Moreover, onset effects reveal that the domain of weight for textsetting is not the syllable, rime, or vowel-to-vowel interval, but rather the interval between p-centers (perceptual centers). Finally, I argue that the textsetting grammar invokes both natural duration and categorical weight; weight mapping cannot be reduced to one or the other.