24.964 Topics in Phonology: Stress with Feet
Donca Steriade
Thursday 2-5, 32D-831
https://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/24/sp14/24.964/
The full syllabus is available here (pdf).
The main goal of this class is to explore the uses of metrical constituent
structure in the analysis of stress. The recent literature on stress reports overgeneration and
undergeneration problems posed by existing foot-based constraints, and seeks to remedy them by
adding more foot types and more foot-based constraints. Most of this work, with Kagers 2012
exception, has not experimented with foot-free solutions. We will consider giving such
alternatives a try. In the last two sessions we will apply what we have learned to the analysis of
some complex metrical systems.
The course opens with a 4-week unit on background issues: how we can tell where stress is,
important in light of how poor stress records occasionally are (deLacy 2012); whether stress is
more than the sum of its acoustic correlates; and the early history of metrical analyses, including
the debates between feet and grid-only analyses, which have set the stage for current research.