Abstract
In this paper, I examine the prosodic nature of unstressed function words in Spanish. I defend the hypothesis that these words, like all other words in the language, have a syllable that is lexically designated as stressed. I suggest that the essential property of these words is that they are subject to a rule of prosodic merger with following elements within the syntactic phrase, creating a single prosodic word domain. Their surface stresslessnes, I argue, is a consequence of the fact that, by a general rule operating in the language, only the rightmost lexical stress is preserved within a prosodic word domain in Spanish. I also consider several pragmatic contexts in which these words may receive stress in discourse. Finally, I briefly compare stresslessness in Spanish with accentlessness in Basque and tonelessness in Bantu languages.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 199-212 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Language Sciences |
Volume | 31 |
Issue number | 2-3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 2009 |
Keywords
- Accent
- Prosodic domains
- Spanish phonology
- Stress
- Unstressed words
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Language and Linguistics
- Linguistics and Language