Speaker: Anton Kukhto (MIT)
Title: Munster Irish stress and the problem of mixed defaults
Time: Monday, September 14th, 5pm – 6:30pm
Abstract: This is a practice talk for AMP, happening too soon. I’ll discuss word stress in one Southern (Munster) Irish dialect, which: (a) is sensitive to syllable weight; (b) falls within an initial three-syllable window; (c) in a sequence of two or more light syllables (L) falls on the first one, #’LL…, while in a sequence of two or more heavy syllables (H), falls on the second one, #H’H… . Kager (2012) terms this configuration “mixed default” stress (the term “conflicting directionality” has been used for a similar phenomenon in unbounded stress systems and elsewhere) and notes that it cannot be accounted for by his weakly layered feet approach to window stress systems without adjustments. I’ll give an analysis relying on grid-based constraints defined in moraic terms and local constraint conjunction. I will then consider some grid-based and foot-based alternatives and their respective typological and Irish-specific predictions.