iv. Uniform Linking Constraint based on the Uniform Headedness Constraint; see Halle and Vergnaud 1978, Stowell 1979, and Hammond 1990b, which requires that all
stressed feet in any given word agree in terms of which edge of the foot the stress is linked to.
I begin by formalizing the proposed manner in which autosegmental stress interacts with feet.
2.3.1. The Autosegmental Stress Hypothesis
Section 2.1 concluded that a new theory of stress is needed, one in which constituency and prominence are formally separate. This might seem like a tall order, but in fact the needed
mechanisms are already available in two separate, well-established theories: prosodic morphology and autosegmental phonology. As was pointed out in section 2.1, prosodic
morphology differs from most approaches to metrical theory primarily in that the latter always assign heads to feet while the former does not. The section went on to argue that there is no
evidence that metrical heads are ever required. Instead, the feet used in stress systems may be assumed to be headless; stress is then viewed simply as a phonological feature rather than as an
inherent element of a foot. Section 2.2 went on to demonstrate that stress behaves formally as an autosegment. This approach to stress assignment, which constitutes the central proposal of
this study, is stated in 89 as the Autosegmental Stress Hypothesis.
89 Autosegmental Stress Hypothesis: Stress is an autosegment. The validity of the Autosegmental Stress Hypothesis depends, in part, upon the separation
of constituency i.e., foot-building from prominence i.e., stress. As was pointed out earlier, this idea is not entirely new. For example, HV also separate constituency from prominence in their
theory of stress, as indicated by the following quote:
Following an idea originating with Liberman 1975, we propose to treat stress by means of the same basic formalism as tone: we shall set up a special autosegmental plane on which one line will contain the
sequence of phonemes and a second line will consist of a sequence of marks representing the stressed phonemes. This formalization will allow us to account for the fact that stress, or the absence thereof, is a
property that is associated in general with discontinuous subsequences in the string of phonemes. We shall represent the autosegmental line for stress as a sequence of abstract positions or slots associated
with the stress-bearing units on the central line. A slot corresponding to a stressed element will be filled by an asterisk Halle and Vergnaud 1987b:5.
Notice that HV base their proposal in large part upon autosegmental theory. Nevertheless, they stop short of rigorously adhering to the established principles of autosegmental theory
because of some alleged differences between stress and the classic autosegment, tone. First of all, HV claim that tone, but not stress, “is associated with units identified by their phonetic
substance and which partakes of this phonetic substance” page 6. However, this is not necessarily true. The fact that stress may arguably not have a specific phonetic reflex is
completely compatible with an abstract but specific stress autosegment.
As another difference between stress and tone, HV cite the fact that two successive stresses may be and usually are separated by one or more potential stress-bearers, whereas
two successive tonal autosegments will always occupy successive tone-bearing slots. What HV
fail to notice, however, is that the latter situation arises only when the adjacent tones are either non-identical or in different morphemes. When this fact is taken into account, the alleged
difference between tone and stress disappears, for two stresses can indeed occur on adjacent stress-bearing units under exactly the same conditions, i.e., when the two stresses are either
non-identical or in different morphemes. The latter case produces an OCP violation which must be resolved, as was discussed in sections 1.2.4 and 2.2.3.
It should also be noted that the domain of stress placement is normally the foot, and stress occurs at the edges of feet in the same sense that tone as viewed by most tonologists occurs at
the edges of words.
59
When this point is considered, the behavior of stress is seen to be very similar to the behavior of tone and all other autosegments in that both occur at domain
edges. As was noted in section 2.2.3, there are some differences between the behavior of tone and
the behavior of stress, but these differences are largely irrelevant to the claim that stress is an autosegment. The only exception is that stress is not observed to spread; this is discussed in
section 6.1.
In summary, the Autosegmental Stress Hypothesis is a logical extension of HV’s idea of treating stress by means of the same basic formalism as tone. That is, the Autosegmental Stress
Hypothesis is implicit in HV’s theory of stress, but HV apply it only in limited ways. Next, I propose a typology of primitive feet similar to that of Hayes 1987, 1991 but
crucially differing from Hayes’ theory in that the feet I propose are inherently headless. Applying the Autosegmental Stress Hypothesis to this typology produces a set of stressed feet
which is equivalent to Hayes’ inventory of metrical feet except for two additional stressed feet which are not predicted by Hayes’ theory.
2.3.2. The Typology of Stress
