PERSISTENCE OF THE LATIN ACCENT IN THE NOMINAL ...

patterns in words of Latin and Germanic origin, the effect of morpheme boundaries, constraints
regarding stress clash, and stress subordination. There is also a recognition that stress is unlike
other distinctive features in that “its domain extends over sequences that are longer than a word”
(Chomsky and Halle 1968, 68). However, absent in the SPE approach to word accent are
formulations capable of capturing broad patterns of regularity such as which elements may bear
stress, the direction of computation of stress, and the required distance between stressed
elements. The several elements that work in tandem to determine stress are dispersed through
various rules such as the Main Stress Rule (Chomsky and Halle 1968, 240-245), the Alternating
Stress Rule (1968, 77-79), and the Stress Adjustment Rule (1968, 84) as well as related rules that
affect segments such as the Vowel Reduction Rule (1968, 100-126).
Early Metrical Theory
The work of Liberman (1979, based on his 1975 dissertation) and Liberman and Prince
(1977) represented an important departure from SPE in that stress was considered to be a “matter
of RELATIVE prominence among syllables, rather than as a degree of absolute prominence
attached to each vowel” (Hayes 1981, 1). Liberman (1979, 207-208) assigned metrical values, s
(strong) and w (weak), to pairs of syllables in binary branching tree structures. The binary
feature [±stress] is then assigned to each vowel dominated by s or w. According to Liberman
(1979, 207-208) the distinction strong/weak is assigned to nodes whereas the feature [±stress]
applies to segments. In its simplest form, the metric tree, labeled R for the rhythmic unit, results
in undesirable opacity. Although one would expect [ə] for both weak syllables in Figure 1-1, the
weak syllable of example A (‘bombast’) retains its full value of [æ] while in B (‘ballast’) it has
been reduced to [ə] (pronunciations from OED Online s. v. bombast, ballast). Liberman and
Prince (1977:264-265) note that while many two-syllable words follow the pattern of Figure1-1
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