Topic

Stress in compound words

Contents

• Introduction• Rules of compound stress• Hypotheses on compound stress• Conclusion

Introduction

• Compound vs. phrasese.g.Family tree, doctor’s dilemma, black boardFamily affairs, doctor’s office, blackboard

• Two main criteria for classificationa) Whether the combination of words is

functioning as a compound or a phrase e.g gentleman ,gentle man

Jesperson (1942)Criticism : the word unit is vagueb) Whether the combination has primary stress

on the first element or second.Bloomfield: Ice- cream , ice cream

Bloch and Trager formal distinction between compound and

phrase English has formal distinction• phonemic modification of their components• kind of juncture• Stress patternOr the combination of above factors

Trager and Smith rules out “stress pattern” “simply two different dialects”E.g. Long Island , long island

Levi explored complex nominals distinguished it from other compound constructions Divided complex nominals into three types• nominal compoundse.G apple cake (forestressed N+N)• nominalizationse.G presidential refusal (afterstressed Adj+N) metal detection (forestressed N+N)• non-predicate adjectivese.G musical clock, electrical engineering (afterstressed Adj+N)

Schmerling It does seem to be the case that in some instances

stress assignment is governed by the choice of head or attribute, in others by syntactic characteristics(whether the attitude has the superficial form of an adjective or a noun).There ought to be rules that captures these generalizations. In other cases stress assignment is an idiosyncratic property of individual compounds and ought to be indicated in the lexicon as such. The fact that stress placement is sometimes predictable should not make us try to predict it always.

Chomsky/Halle analysis “relative prominence tends to be preserved under

embedding both for compounds and phrases”. both combinations occur as constituents of larger

construction and the relative stress levels are maintained.

E.g whale oil , whale oil lampAmerican history, American history teacher, teach

American history.

• Chomsky/Halle analysis is not applicable at a large scale.

• Liberman and Prince: Nuclear Stress rule, The compound stress rule, Rhythm rule

The Nuclear Stress Rule

• The Nuclear Stress Rule specifies that the strongest stress in a phrase will fall as far back, i.e., as close to the end as possible.

. . * . . . * . . line 2__________ ____________(* . *) (* . . *) . . line 1

Jesus wept Madison Avenue

Metrical Boundaries

(to (the (people (of Judea)))) ××××××

to the (people of Judea) √√√√√√

Larger Constituents

. . . *----------------------------------------------------( . . . * ) -------------------------------------------- . ( . . * ) ---------------------------- * * ( * * )[Jesus[preached[to[the[people[of[Judea]]]]]]]

Stress Equalization Convention

• When two or more constituents are conjoined into a single higher level constituent, the asterisk columns of the heads of the constituents are equalized by adding asterisk to the lesser column(s).

Line 4 . . . *

____________________________________Line 3 {*} . . * -----------------------------------------Line 2 {*} {*} . * ---------------------Line 1 * * * * (Jesus(preached to the(people of Judea)))

• JESUS preached to the people of Judea

• Jesus PREACHED to the people of Judea

• Jesus preached to the PEOPLE of Judea

• Jesus preached to the people of JUDAE

The Rhythm Rule

• The Rhythm Rule specifies that the stress on a word will be retracted (i.e., moved forward) in order to avoid consecutively stressed syllables. This rule reflects the tendency in English towards alternating stressed and unstressed syllables.

• In a constituent composed of two or more words, retract the right boundary of the prefinalsubconstituent of constituent to a position immediately before the head of subconstituent, provided that the head of subconstituent is located in the last word of subconstituent (with further restrictions if the subconstituent consists of a single word).

• “Rhythm rule is universally constrained from moving the absolute stress peak of the phrase to which it applies”. Prince (1983)

3 1 2 4New York Maine Route

3 1 2 4Maine New York Route

Like the nuclear stress rule, the rhythm rule for word sequences applies cyclically.

Removing Stress Clashes

• JapaNEse• INstitute• Japanese (adjecent) Institute =• JApanese INstitute• sixTEEN JapaNEse vs. SIXteen JApanese

INstitutes• ANtique NINEteen TWENty MOtor

Cooper and Eady (1986)

• Thirteen corporations/companies submitted bids...

• thirTEEN• THIRteen

Look ahead???

The Compound Stress Rule

• No new rule is required, for the stress contours of compound words result from the interaction of the nuclear stress rule and the rhythm rule.

• In particular, the nuclear stress rule freely applies to all constituents composed of two or more full words (that is, not clitics).

• The rule will apply to compounds as well as to noncompounds and will place an extra asterisk on the rightmost subconstituent.

Three hypothesis

• Structural hypothesis• Semantic hypothesis• Analogical Hypothesis

Plag(2006)Structural hypothesis

• Compounds are regularly left-stressed• Word combinations with right stress cannot be

compounds.• Questions raised and confusions • Stress is the only distinction between Madison

street and Madison Avenue

• Giegrich (2004) has proposed a new variant of structural hypothesis

Compliment –head: structures like truck driver cannot be syntactic phrases hence must be compounds i.e left-stressed

Modifier-head: structures such as steel bridge display the same word order as corresponding modifier-head phrase (wooden bridge) hence are syntactic structures and are right-stressed.

• Contradictions:e.G opera glasses , table cloth• Giegrich: above is the result of lexicalization.• Problems with the above idea:• Lexicalization---- not a categorical process• It cannot be decided whether an item is

lexicalized?

Contradictions

• We should not find rightward stress among NN constructs that exhibit comliment- head order.

Counter example:Tory leader• structural hypothesis------Not Valid!

Semantic Hypothesis

“ stress assignment according to semantic categories”• rightward stress--- well defined categories• E.g geologist-astronomer , scholar- activist• Above are----Copulative compounds

• Other meaning relations :Temporal: summer night Locative : Boston marathonCausative: aluminium foil, silk tie-----(made of) Shakespeare sonnet, Mahler

symphony(created by)

Contradictions

• Summer school, summer camp , day job• Fudge’s theory: NNs in which N refers to the

period or point of time are right-stressed---- REFUTED!• Common point in both hypothesis? Rightward stress is restricted to modifier- head

compounds.

Analogical hypothesis

• Schmerling:------ “many compounds choose their stress

pattern in analogy to combinations that have the same head”------

e.G Oxford street, Main street, Fourth Street Madison Avenue, Fifth Avenue• It is however unclear that how far this

approach can reach.

• Manufactures Rule Made-of-Rule - Final stress

apple 'pie, raspberry 'jam, wooden 'doll• One word Rule Compounds written as one word almost

always have initial stress Blackbird, Greenhouse

• Location Rule - Final stress• Country, region, town - Final stress

Russian 'Roulette, Siamese 'Cat• Place names - Final stress

King's 'Square, Western 'Avenue• Parts of a house, building - Final stress

Garden 'Shed, Church 'clock, School 'Hall

• Positioning - Final stressLeft 'hand, West 'wing

• Time Location - Final stressMarch 'sales, winter 'sports

• Magazines, Newspapers - Final stressWestern 'Mail, New York 'Times

• Skills, academic subjects - Initial stress'French teacher, 'Russian class, 'swimming instructor

• Compound nouns formed from a phrasal verb - Initial stress'set-up, 'make-up, 'comeback, 'feedback

• Compound nouns with verb + er/ing + participle - Final stresshanger-'on, passer- 'by

• Verb + ing + noun (purpose is aided or achieved by the object) - Initial stress'Washing machine, 'running shoes

• Verb + ing + noun (a characteristic) - Final stresssliding 'scale, running 'water

• Adjective +verb + er - Final stresshigh-'flier, fast-'breeder, loud'speaker