Visual Prosody: The Graphematic Foot in English and German

249 Pages·2018·2.079 MB·English

by  Martin Evertz

Martin Evertz
Visual Prosody
Linguistische Arbeiten
Edited by
Klaus von Heusinger, Gereon Müller,
Ingo Plag, Beatrice Primus,
Elisabeth Stark and Richard Wiese
Band 570
Martin Evertz
Visual Prosody
The Graphematic Foot in English and German
ISBN 978-3-11-058108-9
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-058344-1
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-058119-5
ISSN 0344-6727
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018945766.
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© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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Acknowledgements
Iwouldliketosayaheartfeltthank-youtoallthosepeoplewhohavesupported
meincompletingthisbook.
Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Beatrice
PrimusforthecontinuoussupportofmyPh.Dstudyandrelatedresearch,forher
patience, motivation, and immense knowledge. Her guidance helped me in all
thetimeofresearchandwritingofthisthesis.Icannotthankherenoughforthe
opportunityshegaveme.
Besides my first advisor, I would like to thank my second supervisors, Ul-
rikeDomahsandDanielBunčić.Theircommentsandencouragementwereinvalu-
able.
AspecialthankgoestomycolleaguesatBeatricePrimus’chairandthewhole
instituteforGermanlanguageandliteratureIattheUniversityofCologne.Iwould
liketoespeciallythankSvenAlberg,FrankKirchhoff,TimoRöttger,TimGrafand
PatrickBrandt.Theyhelpedmeinvariousways–throughstimulatingdiscussion,
helpfuladvisesandmoralsupport.
Lastbutnottheleast,Iwouldliketothankmyfamily:mymotherandlate
fatherandmybrothersandtheirfamiliesand–ofcourse–Manuelandhisfamily
forsupportingmespirituallythroughoutwritingthisthesisandmylifeingeneral.

Contents
Acknowledgements|V
1 Introduction|1
1.1 BasicPropertiesofGraphematics|2
1.1.1 TheRelationofSpokenandWrittenLanguage|2
1.1.2 Graphematicsvs.Orthography|7
1.2 ThePhonologicalHierarchy|8
1.2.1 TheSyllable|10
1.2.2 TheFoot|16
1.3 TheGraphematicHierarchy|21
1.4 OptimalityTheory|24
1.4.1 AnOTaccountofPhonologicalFeet|27
1.4.2 ApplyingOTtoGraphematics|30
1.5 OutlineofthisWork|32
2 Features,LettersandGraphemes|34
2.1 LetterFeatures|34
2.2 Letters|38
2.3 Graphemes|39
2.4 Summaryofthischapter|44
3 TheGraphematicSyllable|45
3.1 TheCV-tier|46
3.1.1 Definitionofv-letters|47
3.1.2 Lengthsequencingprinciple|55
3.2 SubsyllabicConstituents|57
3.2.1 Nucleus,Coda&SyllableType|58
3.2.2 AfirstOT-analysisofvowelquantitycorrespondences|79
3.3 HyphenationandResyllabification|91
3.4 SummaryofthisChapter|94
4 TheGraphematicFoot|96
4.1 TheCanonicalFoot|96
4.1.1 IdentificationofCanonicalFeet|97
4.1.2 VowelQuantityandAmbisyllabicity|103
4.1.3 RegularityofAmbisyllabicityCoding|116
4.1.4 Summary|119
VIII | Contents
4.2 TheNon-CanonicalFoot|120
4.2.1 VowelQuantityandAmbisyllabicity|120
4.2.2 GraphematicDiphthongs|124
4.3 GraphematicWeight|126
4.3.1 ExperimentalEvidencefromGerman|127
4.3.2 Evidencebasedonlexicaldatabases|139
4.3.3 Summary|161
4.4 AnOT-Modelofg-Feet|162
4.4.1 Assigningg-FootStructures|162
4.4.2 Footcorrespondences|173
4.4.3 ABidirectionalOT-approach|196
4.4.4 Summary|215
4.5 SummaryofthisChapter|217
5 Conclusion|219
5.1 Non-linearvs.LinearApproaches|219
5.2 Graphematicsyllableboundaries|222
5.3 EnglishandGermancompared|223
Bibliography|227
Appendix|237
1 Introduction
Accordingtowell-establishedviews,languagehasseveralsubsystemswhereeach
subsystem(e.g.syntax,morphology,phonology)operatesonthebasisofhierar-
chicallyorganisedunits.Importantly–andasiswidelyacknowledged–thelinear
structuresoflanguagearenotallthereistogrammar;insteaditisthehierarchical
structurethatreallydetermineswhatweperceive.
Whenitcomestothegraphematicstructureofwords,however,thereceived
viewappearstobethatlinearstructureisallthatmatters.Contrarytothisstan-
dard view, a sub-field of writing systems research emerged that can be called
non-linear or supra-segmental graphematics. Drawing on parallels with supra-
segmental phonology, supra-segmental graphematicsclaimsthe existence and
relevance of cross-linguistically available building blocks, such as the syllable
and the foot, in alphabetical writing systems, such as the writing systems of
GermanandEnglish.
Whilesomesupra-segmentalunits,mostlythegraphematicsyllableandthe
graphematicword,gainedsomeattentionintheliterature,theunitcorresponding
tothephonologicalfoot,thegraphematicfoot,hasbeenlargelyneglected.How-
ever,recentworks,primarilyPrimus(2010)forGermanandEvertz&Primus(2013)
forEnglishandGerman,explorethiscategory.
ThisworkisdevotedtothegraphematicfootinEnglishandGermanandex-
aminesitsrelevance,structure,andfunction.Withthegraphematicfoot,itispos-
sibletofillagapinsupra-segmentalgraphematics.AsIwillshowin§1.3,itispos-
sibletoestablishagraphematichierarchyparalleltothephonologicalhierarchy,
asforinstanceproposedbyNespor&Vogel(1986).Importantly,Iwillshowinthis
workthatthewholegraphematichierarchycanbeestablishedindependentlyby
inner-graphematicconstraintsinoppositiontoapproachesinwhichgraphematic
unitsarederivedfromphonologicalones.
Theremainderofthischapterisorganisedasfollows:First,Iwilldiscussba-
sicassumptionsaboutwritingsystemsandthelinguisticapproachtowardsthem.
ThenIwillpresent thephonologicalhierarchy(e.g.Nespor &Vogel 1986).Two
ofthecategoriesofthephonologicalhierarchy,thefootandthesyllable,willbe
examinedabitcloser.Thereafter,Iwillgiveadefinitionofthegraphematichier-
archy,whichisthegraphematiccounterparttothephonologicalhierarchy.The
graphematic hierarchy will be the theoretic background of the analysis of the
graphematicfoot proposed inthiswork.Thechapter concludeswitha briefin-
1 IthankRosaJacksonforproofreadingthemanuscript.AlsoIwouldliketothanktheanony-
mousreviewer,whogavevaluableinput.Allremainingmistakesare,ofcourse,mine.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110583441-001