Sonderdrucke aus der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

PETER AUER A note on prosody in natural phonology Originalbeitrag erschienen in: Julian Mendez Dosuma (Hrsg.): Naturalists at Krems: papers from the Workshop on Natural Phonology and Natural Morphology, (Krems, 1 - 7 July 1988). Salamanca: Ed. Univ. de Salamanca, 1990, S. 11-22

A Note on Prosody in Natural Phonology

Peter Auer

. Naturalness in Phonology: articulation/perception or cognition?

The last 15 years have brought about dramatic changes in (Generative)Phonology; We have witnessed the times of segmental Generative Phonology comingto an end. Radically new conceptions of Phonology have developed. Instead of takingthe input and output of Phonology as strings of linearly ordered segments, as it was thecase in classical Generative Phonology, phonological units are now assumed to displayan internal hierarchical organization; from year to year, the complexity of this internalorganization seems to increase, and new research paradigms such as AutosegmentalPhonology, Metrical Phonology, Prosodic Phonology, Dependency Phonology havedeveloped and worked on phonological representations and models that have little todo with, say, SPE phonology. All of these new approaches make use of the theoreticalinsight that phonological data should be spread onto a number of levels or "tiers") Thisnon-linear approach has made it possible to analyze suprasegmental phenomena, whichby their very nature, spread beyond single phonological segments (such as tone,intonation, st0d, musical and pitch accent); in addition, phenomena hitherto consideredto be in the realm of the segment turned out to be analyzable in a much moreexplanative way, when looked upon in the new paradigm - phenomena such ascompensatory lengthening or assimilation. Indeed, the very nature of the phonologicalsegment itself, which was long taken to consist of a bundle of features (a "matrix"), istoday open to discussion and becomes gradually replaced by a hierarchical structure offeatures.

1 The idea is, of course, not as revolutionary as that if we take phonology as a whole; Firthian phonology wasbased on the same idea, and pre-structuralist phonologists of course always took into account prosodic features inexplaining, for example, the development of the Germanic unaccented syllables. However, it was a revolutionaryidea within generative phonology of the 'classical' kind.

12 Peter Auer

The new trend in Generative Phonology has brought back a number of ideas andconcepts from pre-generative, even pre-structuralist times, and it may not beexaggerating to see as one of its main assets, a new found tradition in phonology:Natural Phonology (NP), flourishing in the early seventies, has at least according tosome (possibly) unbiased onlookers such as Bertinetto (1985: 581), played animportant, though indirect role in bringing about the change from segmental to non-linear phonology, by insisting on the deficiencies of the SPE type of GenerativePhonology and by bringing the syllable back into Phonology. It is all the moresurprising that NP has profited very little from the progress that has been made since,and has had little to contribute to it. Instead, it is still restricted (with no exception. tomy knowledge) to linear segmental analysis! Writers in the NP framework continue tocling to the "teleologies" of fortition and lenition as an overall and comprehensiveexplanation of phonological processes. Fortition (strengthening) and lenition(weakening), in turn, are understood as processes which enhance the perception orfacilitate the articulation of particular segments (sounds). Both are intimately boundto the physiology of the speech and hearing organs. Other natural explanations forphonological phenomena than those that can be stated in terms of articulation (and.occasionally) perception, have played only a minor role. In fact, some authors seem toequate natural rules with processes that have their basis in the articulation system.'

There is no theoretical reason why this should be so. Indeed, Stampe himself ismuch more dialectical on that point (although obviously arguing against the then up-to-date generative framework and not interested in prosody). He states his opinionsomewhat paradoxically: processes are mental operations for him, not just peripheral;but these mental processes must have a "physical" phonetic basis;

"It should not be supposed from this that processes are peripheral, physical events- merely the result of articulatory mistimings or of over- or under-shootings ofarticulatory targets. [...] Anticipatory substitutions, in particular, suggest that thesubstitutions occur in the central nervous system - i.e., that they are mental substitutions.The very suppressibility of processes argues for their mental nature. [...) But althoughprocesses are mental substitutions, they are substitutions which respond to physicalphonetic difficulties." (Donegan & Stampe 1979: 136)

Or, in the same line:"Although phonological substitution is a mental operation, it is clearly motivated

by the physical character of speech - its neurophysiological, morphological, mechanical,temporal, and acoustic properties." (Stampe 1979: 6)

2 Cf. Vennemann (1986).3 The few overview texts on NP do not mention prosody at all (Edwards & Shriberg 1983, Donegan &

Stampe 1979, Dressler 1984). A passing remark can be found in Hurch (1988:18).4 E.g., Hutcheson (1973: 1 f) equates natural processes with "ease of articulation" and Grammont's law "du

moindre effort", Ralph (1981: 343) calls "natural rules" those that "are easily accounted for and formulated onthe basis of substantive properties of the articulatory apparatus". and according to Wojcik (1981: 635) "thefunction of processes is to facilitate and/or clarify pronunciation", and "all processes have a teleology which stemsprecisely from this need to accomodate articulation or perception". The same equation between NP andarticulatory phonetics can be found in some critical comments on NP; cf. Dressler's rejoinder (1984).

5 Note in passing that if the effects of phonological processes were restricted to peripheral neutralmechanisms it would not make sense to investigate aphasia as a testing ground for naturalness.

A Note on Prosody in Natural Phonology 13

It is not easy to grasp what is meant by "physical" in these extracts, although theword is of key quality for their understanding. Stampe seems to allude to features ofthe articulatory organs ("mechanical"?), those of the acoustic signal ("acoustic","morphological"?) and also to those of the (peripheral?) neural processing of language("neurophysiological" seems to be opposed to "mental" here). Interestingly, he alsoalludes to the "temporal" character of language, but leaves it unclear if this is related tothe acoustic, articulatory, or neural side of the "physics" of language. But this vaguenessnonwithstanding, it can be followed with some justification that NP a la Stampe,although it has been almost exclusively concerned with articulatory explanation inpraxi, is not theoretically restricted to this kind of explanation. Instead, it may well bethe case that in addition to articulatory explanations of natural mental operations,there may be others.

Here, I want to propose that some natural principles may have nothing to do atall with articulation or the physical properties of speech (whatever they may be); butare cognitive from the very start. This does not prevent the respective structures of alanguage obeying these principles from being "natural", in the sense of reflecting "theneeds, capacities, and world of its users" (Donegan & Stampe 1979: 127). The basic tenetof all natural approaches to language, i.e. that it is necessary to distinguish betweenconventional, "symbolic" linguistic structures and processes on the one hand, andnatural, language-independent ones on the other hand, does not lose its importance. Butthese "needs and capacities" are central neural processing strategies that apply to many,and also to linguistic, materials.

This means that in order to catch up with what is going on in the rest ofphonology, the very notion of naturalness must be conceived in a more comprehensiveway in NP, which includes cognitive processes and structures. In addition to the well-known teleologies of articulatory weakening and perceptual strengthening, a processcould then also be called natural if it conforms to general principles of cognitiveprocessing.

Note that this is the only way of conceptualizing naturalness that can also beapplied to Natural Morphology and Natural Syntax. 6 Only if we see naturalness in abroader, cognitive sense, is it possible to develop a unified theory of naturalnesscomprising all levels of linguistic structure. Also note that phonology interacts invarious ways with morphological and syntactic structure; and if we want to explainwhy many natural phonological processes have morphologically (or even syntactically)defined domains of application, we have to look at this interaction in terms of naturalcognitive processing of meaningful units (morphemes, words, phrases). It is notdifficult to find examples for the systematic blockage of otherwise naturalphonological processes at morphological boundaries; one is the behaviour of geminates.It is well known that geminates, although being dominated by two timing positions(morae), usually behave like single segments, for they cannot be broken up byphonological processes, or by vowel epenthesis, even if the structural requirements forsuch processes are satisfied. However, in some languages, the timing positionsassociated with a geminate can split into two consonantal segments by a phonological

6 Cf. Auer (in press, a).

14 r Liter

process if a morphological boundary intervenes. How can i1ii be expiaine‘i! A natur.ilexplanation for the non-application of phonological processes to geinizia:' , i that theapplication of a process that facilitates the articulation of a cluster of 1!,.1,..fogeneousconsonants would not have this effect on eminates; in fact, it would e‘en ru‘ -e theirpronounceability. $ But the same applies to all geminates. regardless of niorphologicalboundaries. We have to look for a non-articulatory "teleology - in order t‘ , co , le closerto an explan tion. The non-articulatory side of the coin obviotisl is a 'semantic, ormorphological) one: semantic units (morphemes) should not he elidang.1phonological processes. As they are the basic units of cognitive pro,\:.ing, thr is apreference to keep them intact, and this preference counteracts the phonologicalpreference for not diminishing (or increasing) pronounceability. (This, of car, is theupshot of Lexical Phonology, although not stated in functional terms there.'

It seems, then, that there are good reasons to ineorporate cognitive teleologiesinto NP, lest many phonological phenomena are left out of sight. 'Mese reasons areindependent from the problem of prod. and how it should he handled in NP. But infact, prosody is another area in which merely perceptual and .,ii'tleulatory explanationsof the low-level kind are not enough to distinguish natural from non-naturalphenomena. I want to touch on some of these pheno ita here.

Natural prosody and rhythm

There is one cognitive principle, which is so wel atte:ted in all areas of humanbehaviour, that we can be very sure of its psychologic I reality: the principle ofrhythmicity. From Wilhelm Wundt on,9 an impressive amount of evidence has beengathered for it (cf. e.g. Fraisse 1974 for a summary from a gestalt psychologist's view).Rhythm seems to be so important for human cognition, because it establishes analternation between phases of "tension" (Spannung) and "relaxation" (E1:!spannung) (touse Wundt's terms). On the other hand, there is almost as much evidence for thelinguistic reality of rhythmicity. This convergence between cognition and languageprovides a good starting point for investigating rhythmicity as a natural teleologyexplaining linguistic regularities.

Phonological rhythmicity cannot be captured in terms of the physiology of thespeech and hearing organs. Neither can it be explained by reference to the "physical" sideof the speech signal alone; for according to a number of recent studies,'" we 'hear' more

For instance, in Tigrinya a postv• c ski stop undergoes spir4 Uizatton.This spiranti „anon is blockedfor geminates (Ai Iiii-(PERF)-2mase m. 'he/she killed you' cannot become lqiitaliixkaii, but not ifthere is a morpheme boundary: fbarak-ka/ 'blerss-(PERF)-2sgmase you blessed' becomes iharax-kal (cf.Schein & Steriade 1986: 698).

8 It may be useful here to stress the difference between such a natural phonological explanation and the'explanation' offered in the present-thy generative framework (se, again Schein & Steriade 1986: 692,summarizing other work), which is "that the geminates 1,8.1 resist being split by epenthesis because any insertedvowel will cross association lines with the geminate segment". This is no explanation, but just a formal d,..scriptionof wh4t happens.

9 Wundt (1887, 11, 25310.10 Cl, among many others, Donovan & Darwin 0979 Darwin & Donovan (1980), Lehi& :1 and (1

A Note on Prosody in Natural Phonology 15

rhythm than there actually is in the speech signal. It has to be concluded that we aredealing with a principle that lacks an articulatory or perceptual basis, but which isnevertheless thoroughly "natural".

What are the consequences of rhythmicity for the phonology of language? Tobegin with, all languages are rhythmically organized in that they alternate betweenaccented and unaccented syllables (although the phonetic correlates of this accentuationmay be very different from language to language). There is, however, another feature ofrhythm which goes beyond mere alternation, and which is realized in the languages ofthe world in various ways, i.e. isochrony. By this I mean the recurrence of certainprosodic units in an approximately even, perceived temporal spacing. The tendencytowards isochrony is one of the important natural principles governing phonology.(Being, as it is, a teleological principle, this means that isochrony need not be achievedeverywhere, and possibly not even in the great majority of cases; just as withstrengthening and weakening, there are other factors that counteract isochrony and maydisturb it in a number of ways.)

Isochrony has puzzled phoneticians and linguistics for a long time (see theoverview in Auer & Uhmann 1988). The matter still isn't settled, but it seems clearthat in a strict phonetic sense, isochrony cannot be expected (although it is by no meansclear what "a strict phonetic sense" means in this context). The hypothesis thatlanguages be timed in an isochronous way, as put forward, e.g., by K. Pike (1945), istherefore wrong if taken literally. However, there are many facts that support the lessradical view that languages have a tendency towards isochrony, realized to differentdegrees.

More important for NP than the mere phonetic investigation of isochrony is thefact that isochrony has important consequences for the phonology of a language; and asthe prosodic unit that is chosen as the basis of isochrony may vary from language tolanguage, rhythm is very likely one of the most central and most predictive propertiesof phonological systems, correlated which a great many segmental and suprasegmentalfeatures. As far as our present knowledge of the prosodies of phonological systemsgoes, there are mainly two prosodic units that may be the basis of isochrony: thesyllable and the foot. (A third basic timing unit, the mora, occurs in some languagessuch as Japanese, but the phonological features correlated with it are similar to those ofthe syllable-based type. Nothing is known about isochrony on higher levels than thefoot - e.g. on the level of the prosodic phrase, or even the breath group.) In the one case, alanguage strives at keeping the central unit of prosody (and of phonological languageprocessing in general) at a constant duration, i.e. the syllable; with the exception ofmonosyllabic languages, which rarely have a syllable-based rhythm, this means thatisochrony is established below the semantic level. In the other case, the basic rhythmunit 'foot' is strongly related to the minimal self-contained semantic unit, i.e. the word,in the respective language. This is so, because phonological words constitute one footeach in such languages, with the word accent (ictus) usually on one of the first syllablesin the word, and pre-ictus syllables (anacrusis) irrelevant for rhythmic structure (cf.Jassem, Hill & Witen 1984). The phonological word, in turn, relates to themorphological word (although, of course, it is not identical with it). The first,syllable-based type of rhythm is therefore more phonologically oriented, the second,

16 Peter .-luer

foot-based type more grammatically (semantically) orknt,-,I. A.rJig to anestablished terminology, we may call languages which foln th first teleo.ogy morethan the second syllable - timed (or iso-syllabic). those of the secondpe stressed -

timed (or iso-accentual).''

Syllable-timing and stress-timing are two fundamental natural principIs forthe rhythmic organisation of language. They have a communicati\s„ , parole) and astructural (langue) aspect. On the communicative side, there is 1h,.! still littleunderstood fact that the rhythmic integration of conversation across srAers' turnsseems to be of fundamental importance for establishing and maint.tining " state oftalk" (in Goffman's terms), and that rhythmic cues play a central role in the irake-up ofsuch diverse local conversational structures as repair , . telephou dosi;s. topicality,interruptions, etc. There is no room to go into any details horc.; but it is important tounderline that the Natural Phonology of rhythm (and of procod, in genchti goes, asdoes NP in general, beyond the structural level towards a l'unctional explanation,which also includes to the communicative weds of language use)''

Here, I only want to sketch some of the stnictura! points. By refetnc,' to naturalprinciples of stress- and accent-timing, many phonological properties can be explainedas natural - because conforming with the rhythm type of a langua,.4c - which wouldotherwise be left outside the explanatory apparatus of NP. This is true for prosodicfeatures of languages (for instance, rhythmic teleologies help us to explain why somelanguages have iambic reversal or deaccentuation, why some languages have cliticswhereas others don't, etc.). But more than that is involved: the rhythmic principles ofstress- and accent-timing make it possible to correlate natural 'segmental' processeswith each other so that phonological "types" (in the sense of Skaaka 1 ) emerge, andto allocate individual languages to these types. E.g.: Processes such as vowel reductionor intervocalic consonant weakening are described as natural processes of weakeningfollowing an articulatory teleology. But why do these processes occur in somelanguages, not in others? And why is there a higher probability for vowel reduction andintervocalic consonant weakening to co-occur, than for intervoealic weakening to occurin a language that has no reduced vowels?

So far, the only attempt to answer these questions by defining phonologicalrhythm types has been made by P. Donegan & D. Stampe, two of the leading naturalphonologists, in a short paper on the Munda and Mon-Khmer language families, inwhich they avoid any reference at all to NP (Donegan & Stampe 1983).' The aim of thispaper is ambitious indeed, for "syllable" and "word rhythm" (in their terminology) arenot only shown to be at the heart of a number of phonological properties of the

II It may turn out that the two alternatives are not really equivalent. For instance, lioequist (1983) assumesthat syllable-timing is nothing but the absence of stress-timing. Although this my phonetically true, a morephonological perspective is best served by accepting sylli4ble- and stress-timing as basic rhythmic preferences.

Cf. the classic book by Erickson & Shulz (1982) and our work on the contextualizing function of r)ythm;e.g. Couper-Kuhlen :4 Auer (in press), Auer (in press, b), Couper-Kuhlen (1989) and (in press).

" This reluctance to indicate any connection with NP is difficult to explain, given the short extracts fromStampets writings cited in the beginning of this paper. It may prove that, after all, Donegan & Stampe believemore in articulatory NP than my interpretation of these extracts suggests.

A Note on Prosody in Natural Phonology 17

language groups in question (Mon-Khmer is iso-accentual, Munda is iso-syllabic); it isalso correlated with their morphological and syntactic properties, in order to give anoverall, rhythm based typology. In particular, Donegan & Stampe correlate

syllable rhythm - case system - suffixing - left-bound ('falling') word accent - fallingphrasal accent - operator-last syntax (i.e. modifier before modified);

and word rhythm - no case system - prefixing - right-bound (rising') word accent - risingphrasal accent - operator-first syntax.

Although Donegan & Stampets approach is intriguing, it is not withoutproblems either. The most problematic link is certainly the one between word order andsentence prosody on the one hand, and rhythm on the other. Donegan & Stampe claimthat iso-syllabic languages have left-bound "word accent", because they also have left-bound "phrasal accent", which, in turn, is due to the fact that the phrasal accent is onasserted (as opposed to given) information in a sentence, and to the fact that modifiers(operators) are asserted rather than given, the opposite holds for iso-accentuallanguages, which postpone the asserted information (V-final word order) and thereforeplace the phrasal accent (as well as, by consequence, the word accent) to the right.However, it is far from obvious that modifiers are always (or systematically) newinformation. (According to many linguistic theories, it is of course the verb, i.e., in thisterminology, an operand, which conveys new or rhematic information.) And in fact,many languages which are supposed to be iso-syllabic have right-bound phrasal (andword) accent (French, Turkish), whereas many of those which are commonly held to beiso-accentual (such as the Germanic languages) have left-bound word, but right-boundphrasal accent.

The present, more restrictive overview of some of the properties derived fromsyllable- or foot (word-) based rhythm are confined to phonology, in particular,segmental phonology and remains within the realm of the European languages.' Here, alanguage which follows iso-accentual teleology to a relatively large degree is English.Such a language will underline the alternation between stressed and unstressedsyllables in order to give a clear gestalt to the foot/word, which is its basic unit forisochrony. This implies that unaccented syllables are reduced in quantity and quality;stress-timed languages very often have a reduced vowel system in unaccented position,i.e. some of the phonemic distinctions made in the accent position are lost there.Elements are tightly packaged within the foot (or phonological word), leading to thecliticization of pre- and post-ictus elements. This cliticization may entail the loss ofnon-ictus syllable nuclei; the remaining consonants are attached to the ictus syllableand may create complex onsets and codas there. These, in turn, lead to variousconsonantal processes of assimilation and dissimilation. Given the fact that the foot ismore important than the syllables it contains, it also follows that syllable boundariesare of little importance; by consequence, there is variability in the syllabification of

" Nevertheless, many of the properties mentioned here are of course also to be found in Donegan & Stampe(1983).

I 8 Pete; r

intervocalic consonant clusters, above all after short vowels, and there isambisyllabicity of single intervocalic consonants in the same phonological context.Ictus syllables tend to attract consonantal elements of the following non-ictussyllable. The coherence in the foot is underlined at tho cost of the gestalt of theindividual syllables; therefore, syllables within the foot may change their outlook byphonological processes such as flapping or fricativization (which often neutralizephonemic distinctions and are therefore "counter-iconic"). There is no chance for truegeminates to occur, for these would presuppose a clear-cut syllable divisii. In an iso-accentual language clusters of homorganic consonants are immediateti■p, reduced tosingle consonants.) The unity of the foot (or phonological word) is Itirtilr underlinedby foot-related compensation phenomena that go beyond the syllable. Foy instance, MEOpen Syllable Lengthening exchanged a 'flora in the second syllable of ME hi-syllabicwords ending in schwa for one in the first, accented sy liable: schwa was dropped, theictus vowel lengthened'

In the domain of prosody proper, phenomena such as iambic reversal anddeaccentuation can only be explained if rhythm is taken into account. The commondenominator for both phenomena (and others) is that the number of unaccentedsyllables between two accented syllables should be kept at not too great a variance,because "beat clash" (Le. the juxtaposition of two beats) or a large number of unaccentedsyllables would make it difficult to maintain isochrony of the foot. This is why we getpairs such as rice-president Jones vs. itines, the vice-president, sAteen vs. she was Onlysixteen, etc.

Turning now to languages which follow the teleology of syllable-timing, wemay choose (standard) Italian as a rather typical representative among the Europeanlanguages. As the basic rhythmic unit for establishing isochrony is the syllable inItalian, vowel reduction in the non-accented syllables is not to be expected. Eachsyllable has a distinct gestalt and is phonologically speaking on a ar with itsneighbouring syllables. (Although ictus syllables are phonetically long in Italian,vowel quantity is not phonemic; therefore, the vowel system in non-ictus positioncannot be said to be reduced.) On the other hand, the teleology towards keeping theduration of individual syllables constant requires a relatively uniform syllablestructure; this is why syllable-timed languages tend to have strong syllable structureconstraints; in Italian, for example, open syllables are statistically speaking much morefrequent than, e.g., in English, and in native words, only open syllables are permittedword-finally.

The preference for CV-syllables not only makes it easier to produce syllables atan even pace, it also allows the neat separation of syllables: grosso modo, everypostvocalic consonant introduces a new syllable. Iso-syllabic languages thereforefollow the principle to maximize the onset to a much greater degree than iso-accentuallanguages. The tendency of lenitions (weakening) and fortitions (strengthening) to bedistributed unevenly over syllable onsets and syllable codas (fortitions in the onset,lenitions in the coda) conforms with this principle and therefore also with iso-

15 Cf. Minkova (1982) for the dtta, Auer (1988) for this interprettion according to "Streitberg\ LaW",

A Note on Prosody in Natural Phonology 19

syllabicity. The neat separation of syllables excludes ambisyllabic consonants or anyvariability of syllabification. However, it is compatible with the occurrence ofgeminates, as they are observed in some varieties of Italian.

If mora compensation takes place in a syllable-timed language, it is confined tothe syllable. An example is the well-known generalization that long vowels arefollowed by single consonants, short vowels by consonant clusters or geminates(recently known as "Prokosch's Law"); the trade-off between vocalic and consonantalmorae plays an important role in the nucleus of Italian syllables.

As with English, it must be clear that Italian is a language which comes close tothe iso-accentual prototype phonology, but doesn't actually represent it in 'pure form'.(For instance, Italian is close to the iso-syllabic type, but contrary to what we wouldexpect,' accent placement plays some role in its grammar, and accent placement is muchmore flexible than in other iso-syllabic languages such as French or Turkish). In the lifeof a language, both principles, the one for iso-accentual isochrony and the one for iso-syllabic isochrony, are present; but usually, one is given preference at the expense of theother. That there may be a mixture of elements from the two prototypes in many of theactual occurring languages is, not in the least, due to diachronic changes of rhythm type,such as in English from iso-syllabic to iso-accentual. The great advantage of workingwith rhythmic teleologies is that this makes it possible to develop a holistic picture ofa phonology; the atomistic listing of segmental processes subsumed under fortition orlenition - a certain danger in NP; cf., e.g. the introductory chapters in Edwards &Shriberg (1983) - is thereby avoided.

3. Concluding remarks

What has been said in the last section is far from qualifying as a naturalphonology of prosody. Many things have been left out. In particular, rhythmicstructure does not only relate to phonology; it also interacts with syntax andsemantics. Again, we find natural principles governing this interaction. Above all, thereis an important iconic relationship between syntax and rhythmic structure: we expectrhythmic grouping on various hierarchical levels to reflect syntactic grouping, and viceversa. (Contrary to Selkirk 1984, I do not think that rhythmic grouping isunidirectionally governed by syntax; in fact, some syntactic regularities are governedby rhythm, as Behaghel correctly notes in his "Gesetz der schweren Glieder" (1932).Examples abound; for instance, German Ausklammerung (right-dislocation of

16 Donegan & Stampe (1983) correlate iso-syllabic phonologies with left-bound word and sentence accent,but iso-accentual phonologies with rightbound accent (s. above). This may be true for the Munda and Mon-Khmerlanguage families but is difficult to apply to iso-syllabic or iso-moric language such as the Turc languages orJapanese (with fixed rightbound accent or flexible/lacking word accent). The alternative point of view adopted hereis that (word and phrasal) accent plays a more important role for the phonetics, phonology and morphonology of aprototypically iso-accentual language (cf. its grammatical functions in Russian, German, English) than it does in aprototypically iso-syllabic language. Theoretically, this follows from the importance of the foot (defined by stressed

syllables) in iso-accentual languages.

0 Auer

constituents out of the verbal brackets), is rarily govcriw,1 by rhythmicconsiderations.) Taking this kind of iconick id i rrires us enoughflexibility to deal with counter-iconic relatiov., betwii syntax aii4 ihythm as well.When syntax and rhythm 'fall apart'. thk would be d,..-scribed as eitherconventionalized, or as a stylistic mannerism.''

Finally, it must be cle r that prosody covers rrior . than just rhythm; rly plea fora cognitive approach to natural principles applies to intonatIon .is well. Few :,,,,arehershave dared to inquire into the natural, possibly ickyik- bas,;'s of intonation tbut cf.Bolinger 1983); it is time to ask if any intonation contour nIn any thing. i.e. if pitchmovement is totally conventionalized in intonation. Rut th;:" natural bases forintonation, whatever they may be, will certainly not be found inth articulatory organsto any interesting degree: they must be cognitive.

17 Incidentally, one which German TV commentators seem to he particularly inclined to.

A Note on Prosody in Natural Phonology 21

REFERENCES

Auer, Peter. 1988. "Some ways to count morae: Prokosch's Law, Streitberg's Law,Pfalz's Law and other rhythmic regularities" = KontRI Working Paper No 6,University of Constance, Department of Linguistics, Dec.1988.

Auer, Peter. in press (a). "Nattirlichkeit und Stil." To appear in: V. Hinnenkamp & M.Selting (eds) Soziolinguistik von Sprechstilen. Ttibingen: Niemeyer.

Auer, Peter. in press (b) "Rhythmic integration in phone closings." = KontRI WorkingPaper No 2, Constance; to appear in: M. de Fornel et al. (eds) Proceedings of theconference on "Analyse d'action et analyse de conversation".

Auer, Peter & Susanne Uhmann. 1988. "Silben- und akzentzahlende SprachenForschungsstand und Diskussion." Zeitschrift ftir Sprachwissenschaft 2/1988.

Behaghel, Otto. 1932. Deutsche Syntax, Bd. IV . Heidelberg: Winter.

Bertinetto, P.M. 1985. "A proposito di alcuni recenti contributi alla prosodiadelleitaliano". Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa XV, 581-643.

Bolinger, Dwight. 1983. "Where does intonation belong?" J. Sem. 2.2., 101-120.

Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. in press. "Contextualizing discourse: the prosody ofinteractive repair". To appear in: P. Auer & A. di Luzio (eds) ContextualizingLanguage. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. 1989. "Speech rhythm and its turn-taking functions ineveryday conversation" = KontRI Working Paper No. 5, Constance.

Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth & Peter Auer. in press. "On the contextualizing function ofspeech rhythm in conversation: question-answer sequences." To appear in: J.Verschueren (ed) Proceedings of the 2nd Intern. Pragmatics Conference.Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Darwin, C.J. & A. Donovan. 1980. "Perceptual studies of speech rhythm: isochrony andintonation." In: J.C. Simon (ed) Proc. of the NATO-ASI on Spoken LanguageGeneration and Understanding. Dordrecht: Reidel, 77-95.

Donegan, Patricia J. & David Stampe. 1979. "The study of Natural Phonology." In: D.A.Dinnsen (ed) Current Approaches to Phonological Theory. Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 126-173.

Donegan, Patricia J. & David Stampe. 1983. "Rhythm and the holistic organization oflanguage structure." In: CLS 19, Parasession on the Interplay of Phonology,Morphology & Syntax, 337-353.

Donovan, A. & C.J. Darwin. 1979. "The perceived rhythm of speech". In: Proc. 9thIntern. Congr. Phon.Sci., Copenhagen, Vol. II, 268-274.

Dressler, Wolfgang. 1984. "Explaining Natural Phonology". Phonology Yearbook 1,

r

Edwards. M.L. & L.D. Shriberg, 1983. Phonoloo . San Ili!, Press.

Erickson, Frederick & Jeffrey Shultz. 1982. The Counselor ass CfAcepier. SocialInteraction in Interviews. NY: Academic Press.

Fraisse, Paul. 1974. Psychologic du rythrne. Paris.

Jassem, W., D.R. Hill & 1,H. \Viten. 1984. "Isochroly in English its statisti,:alvalidity and linguistic relevance. In: D. Gibbon & H Rr4 is Intonation,Accent I Rhythm Berlin: de Gruyter, 203-255

Hoequist, Charles Jr. 1983. "Syllabk duration in stress-, „A a dlanguages." Phonetica 40, 203-237.

Hurch. Bernhard. 1988. Ober Aspiration. TUN; n: Nam

Hutcheson, LW. 1973. A Natural History of Complete Consonan I AssiPh.D. thesis, Ohio State University.

Lehiste, Use. 1973. "Rhythmic units and syntactic units in production and perception.JASA 54, 1228-1234.

Lehiste, Ilse. 1977. "Isochrony recon.sikkred," J. Phonet, 5, 3-263.

Minkova, Donka. 1982. "The environment for open syllable lengthening in MiddleEnglish." Fol. Ling, Hist. 29-58.

Pike, Kenneth. 1945. The Intonation of American English. Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan Press.

Ralph, Bo. 1981. "Rule nquralness and rule diffusion." In: W. Dressler et al. (eds)Phonologica 1980. Innsbruck, 343-349.

Schein, Barry & Donca Steriade. 1986. On geminates. Ling. Inqu. 17.4, 691-744.

Selkirk, Elizabeth .1984. Phonology and Syntax: the Relation Between Sound andStructure. Cambridge, Mass.

Skali6ka, V. 1966. "Ein Ptypologisches Konstrukt. — Travaux Linguistiques de Prague(TLP) II, 157-165.

Stampe, D. 1979. A Dissertation on Natural Phonology. IULC.

Vennemann, Theo. 1986. Neuere Entwicklungen in der Phonologic. Berlin: Mouton.

Wojcik, Richard 1981. "Natural phonology and generative phonology". In: D. Goyvaerts(ed) Phonology in the 1980s. Ghent: Story-Scientia, 635-647.

Wundt, Wilh. 3 1887. Grundziige der physiologischen Psychologie, Leipzig: W.Engelmann.