Spanish rhymes: a challenge to constraints on syllable structure?
Date
2004-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Calgary
Abstract
A standard assumption in Onset/Rhyme theory is that, crosslinguistically, rhymes never license more than two position; the occurrence of additional segments is limited to word edges and licensing is carried out by higher prosodic units. Spanish three-positional word-medial rhymes seem to challenge this assumption. Furthermore, the third position in this transgressive syllable structure is systematically occupied by /s/, one of the only two segments of the Spanish phonemic inventory that can become invisible for matters of stress assignment. A closer look at the data reveals that this prima facie transgressive structure tends to occur at morpheme boundaries: few Spanish roots contain three-segmental rhymes. The systematic assignment of secondary stress on the prefix or the first member of compounds in which the transgressive rhyme is found, and the presence of primary stress on roots with three-segmental word-medial rhymes become crucial in an analysis that relies on a looser conception of extraprosodicity in order to account for the Spanish data: /s/ – the transgressing segment – is licensed by an available foot node projected by the stress bearing threesegmental rhyme.
Description
Keywords
Linguistics, Phonology, Spanish language, Constraints (Linguistics), Phonetics, Grammar, Comparative and general--Syllable, Morphology, Rhyme, Speech Prosody
Citation
González Poot, A. A. (2004). Spanish rhymes: a challenge to constraints on syllable structure?. Calgary Working Papers in Linguistics, 25(Spring), 109-152.