Phonology 8 (1991) 1-35
Printed in Great Britain

The English Rhythm Rule as anaccent deletion rule*
Carlos Gussenhoven
University of Nijmegen

1 Introduction
1.1 A categorical representation of stress
The culminative nature of stress has led to three common assumptions
about its representation. These are (i) that it should allow for an
unbounded continuum of prominence levels (the INFINITY assumption);(ii) that it should characterise prominence levels as relative to nearby
weaker or stronger prominence levels, not as levels that are phoneticallyinterpretable in isolation (the RELATIVITY assumption); and (iii) that alllevels of prominence should be represented in terms of the samemechanism (the UNIFORMITY assumption). The infinity assumption is
implicit in the Chomsky & Halle (1968) w-ary feature [stress], in Liberman& Prince's (1977: 263) metrical tree, as well as recent interpretations of thegrid (Halle & Vergnaud 1987: 35). The relativity assumption was madeexplicit in Trager & Smith (1957: 35) and Liberman & Prince (1977: 262).
The uniformity assumption was commonly held until Liberman & Prince
split off the binary feature [stress] (to represent the distinction between
reduced and unreduced syllables) from the metrical tree (to represent
higher levels of prominence), which formed the basis for Selkirk's (1980)
proposal to postulate the foot as a prosodic constituent. The claim
defended in this paper is that a representation of stress must be adopted
which provides for a finite number of prominence levels (rejecting theinfinity assumption); which is locally interpretable (rejecting the relativity
assumption); and which is differential in the sense that not all levels ofprominence are represented in terms of the same mechanism (rejecting theuniformity assumption).
There are many conceivable representations that conform to the above
three properties. This article adopts a particularly parsimonious one forEnglish, and demonstrates that this representation can adequately deal
with the rhythmic adjustments that have been discussed in the recent
12Carlos Gussenhoven

literature. First, the prosodic hierarchy is assumed to provide the mechanism for representing durational structure. Second, foot structure
captures the distinction between reduced and unreduced syllables (wherea 'foot' is a headed constituent with an unreduced syllable in head
position). And third, deviating from current proposals, it is assumed thatfeet can be marked with 'accent' (symbolised *, after Goldsmith 1976),
where * marks an insertion slot for postlexical intonational tones. The
three phonetic parameters associated with stress (duration, degree of
qualitative reduction and pitch) are thus separately encoded, which makes
the claim that the correct generalisations concerning stress manipulate
only one of these aspects at a time. This article deals with prominencelevels above the foot. That is, it deals with accent rules. The discussion
assumes a model of Lexical Phonology of English of the type treated in
Mohanan (1982), Kiparsky (1982, 1985a) and Kaisse & Shaw (1985). A
RHYTHM RULE is formulated as an accent deletion rule, which applies
postlexically in the Phonological Phrase (<j>). Two lexical accent deletion
rules, the COMPOUND RULE and INITIAL ACCENT DELETION, both applying toStratum-2 formations (Kiparsky 1982), are shown to produce the appropriate accentual configurations for the Rhythm Rule. §2 introduces thetwo lexical rules, while §3 is devoted to the postlexical rule. It will beargued that postlexical rhythmic adjustments in English receive a simpler
analysis in our accentual framework than in conventional stress shiftaccounts. An important additional advantage of the proposed representation is that it allows focus-sensitive accent assignment rules,
necessary in theories with conventional representations of stress, to be
replaced with accent deletion rules. It is shown (§4) that it is simpler towrite rules that delete accents in unfocused speech than it is to write rulesthat assign accents to the right syllables in focused speech.
Our representation does not distinguish primary and secondary word
stress, other than implicitly in the sense that the last accent in a word willcorrespond to the 'primary stress' in other analyses. Somewhat surprisingly, this stripped-down representation is capable of handling theEnglish data quite adequately. §5 investigates to what extent the distinction between primary and secondary word stress needs to be referred
to in ways that cannot be expressed with the help of accentuallyformulated rules. It will be seen that, given the accentual theory defended
here, the need for an independent representation of primary word stressin English is more difficult to demonstrate than it is for Dutch, which has
at least two rules that refer to the distinction in unaccented speech. The
tentative conclusion to be reached on this point is that although English
lacks the kind of rules to be illustrated for Dutch, the distinction between
primary and secondary word stress is nevertheless encoded, and may show
up in subtle timing phenomena.

The English Rhythm Rule
1.2 Lexical representations
Representative examples of lexical representations (Mohanan 1982, 1986)
are given in (1):(1) a.

CO

F

CO

b.

F

F

F

A i

A A
Ari

zona

Dela ware

CO

c.

F

d.

CO

F

F

tana

Maine

1 A
Mon

1

Uncontroversially, Arizona is assumed to have four syllables, of which
two, A- and -zo-, are 'stressed' and two, -ri- and -na, are 'unstressed',
that is, Ari- and -zona are two left-headed feet (Hayes 1981; Selkirk 1980;
Hammond 1984). Similarly, Delaware consists of three syllables and twofeet (Dela- and -ware), and so on. What distinguishes (1) from competing
representations is that prominence above the foot is encoded by means of
the presence vs. absence of accent. Although this article will not concern
itself with the lexical rules assigning foot structure and accents (cf.
Gussenhoven in preparation), certain claims made in §3 cannot beproperly evaluated without some clarification of how representations like(1) are produced. Briefly, stems are assigned feet by rule (unless footstructure is prespecified). Final feet are accented (unless they are extrametrical). In addition, initial feet are accented, to provide what in otheranalyses are known as secondary stresses (e.g. canteen, California). In
order to prevent initial accents from being assigned to the first syllable inwords like Japan, left-over initial open syllables are left unfooted. Such asyllable is later included as an appendix to the next foot (cf. (3)). Although
this is not crucial to our analysis, it is assumed that derived words result
from the attachment of prosodically prespecified affixes. Thus, a suffix like-ity is an accented foot with a segmentally empty head, while the suffix-ese is an accented monosyllabic foot, as shown in (2):(2) a.

F

/X

b.

F

1

i ty
ese
Lexical accent deletion and foot-deletion rules apply so as to remove
word-internal clashes arising though affixation. In (3), *-deletion, a rulethat deletes the left-hand of any two syllable-adjacent accents in a
structure of minimally three syllables applies to Japanese (though not tothe disyllable Chinese), after affixation of -ese (which triggers a vowel
deletion not relevant here). Foot deletion then applies to the unaccented
open-syllabled foot in Japanese, followed by the erection of foot structure
over unfooted Japa-. Then *-initial, already referred to above, applies (to4Carlos Gussenhoven
Japanese, canteen), while the structure is completed by stray adjunction of
initial unfooted syllables (in obese and Japan):
F

*
F

China

Japan

(3)

Structure

obese

A

1

F

i i

canteenF F

F F

Chin-eseJapan-ese

1 1Morphology

F

i i

F F

1 1

-

-

*-deletion

Japan-ese

-

F

1

—

_

F-deletion

Japan-ese

_

F F

A1

Structure

Japanese
.

*

F F

F F

Japanesecanteen--

A1*-initial

11

CO

F

F
Appendix

obese

hipan

-

(0

(0

Output

F

FF

F

obese

Chinese

hipan

1

il

i

F

F

A1
Japanese

.

*

F F

1 i

canteen

The English Rhythm Rule
5
While durational reduction of initial appendices is always permitted,
qualitative reduction of its vowel is subject to restrictions that do not holdword-internally. In particular, vowel reduction in appendices tends to beless common in American English than in British English. For instance,
the appendices in words like O'Brady, obese have [ou] in AmE, but can be
reduced to schwa in BrE. In either variety, they contrast with the firstsyllable of Auberge, which has a lexically prespecified initial foot. Or again,
consider Belize, derived like Japan, which even if it retains [e] in the firstsyllable, has a shorter vowel than a potential Bellese (' a language designed
by some Bell'), which would be formed like Chinese. It further needs
pointing out that the rule assigning initial accent is inoperative if the initialfoot is non-branching and is followed by a branching foot, so that it skips
cantankerous, Montana, but not canteen, Montrose or Montour. Whilethese remarks about the prosodic derivations at Stratum 1 are sketchy,
they suffice to allow the discussion of subsequent accent deletions atStratum 2 and postlexically to proceed.

1.3 Surface representations
Accents assigned at Stratum 1 are liable to be deleted before they reach thesurface. Words like Delaware, Montana and Maine each have exactly two
allomorphs. One of these is given in (1), and the other lacks thg accent on
Dela-, -tana and Maine, respectively. Similarly, a word like Arizona has
four allomorphs. In addition to the one given in (la), there is one with anaccent on the first foot only, illustrated in (4a), one with an accent on thelast foot only, as in (4b, c), and one with no accents, as in (4d):(4) a.
b.
c.
d.

Arizona Avenue
North Arizona
Arizona-style avenues
Even John went to Arizona

1.4 Pitch accent insertion
Accents that make it to the surface are provided with pitch accents, like H,
HL or LH (Pierrehumbert 1980). Thus, the * in our representations serves
as an abstract place marker for a pitch accent. As is well known, English
has a fairly large number of pitch accents. In contrast to Bolinger's (1958,
1986) pitch-accent theory of English stress, our analysis abstracts awayfrom the different pitch configurations that accents can be provided withat the point tonal structure is inserted (cf. Vanderslice & Ladefoged 1972;
Ladd 1980: 16). In (5a), we illustrate the insertion of H and HL on the two
accents of the surface form Japanese. (A full tonal specification would
include the insertion of boundary tones associated with intonational

6Carlos Gussenhoven
domains, which we ignore here.) The same tonal structure is also
illustrated in a phrase in (5b):(5) a.

[Japanes\L

I K
• •

b. [Japanese chairs].

I
•

K
#

H HL
H
HL
Two observations can be made. First, the initial syllable of Japanese isderivationally identical to the first syllable of Japanese chairs. No rule has
affected their accents after they were assigned in the lexicon, and they will
have identical claims to pitch accents. The absence of the accent on the lastfoot in Japanese results from the application of the accentual Rhythm Rule(to be formulated in §3). Second, the greater prominence of the second
accent relative to the initial accent in both (5a) and (5b) is explained by its
final position, and particularly by the effect that this will have on theinsertion of boundary tones. It is significant in this connection that the
final accent is not necessarily perceived as more prominent than the first.
If the second accent is a downstepped H, listeners do not hear it as more
prominent than the first (Bolinger 1986: 60; Cruttenden 1986: 51). Thus
our representations correctly leave the relative levels of prominence of thetwo accents underspecified.

2 Stratum 2
In this section, we introduce Initial Accent Deletion. It is shown that therule fits precisely into the model of Lexical Phonology of Kiparsky (1982).
It is argued that the rule's sensitivity to morphological information causes
phonological descriptions of rhythmic adjustments to miss an important
generalisation. This question is considered on the basis of the description
offered in Nespor & Vogel (1989). Next, two proposals to deal with thedata, Halle & Vergnaud (1987) and Kager & Visch (1988), are discussed,
and rejected. Finally, the relation between the Strict Cycle Condition andInitial Accent Deletion is briefly investigated.
2.1 Motivating Stratum 2
According to Kiparsky (1985a) and Booij & Rubach (1987), all lexical
strata except the last are cyclic, by which they mean not just that forms arebuilt up and phonologically adjusted morpheme by morpheme, but-more
importantly-that lexical phonological rules obey the Strict Cycle Condition (SCC). According to the SCC, a rule that applies at a cyclic stratum
does so in environments derived in the cycle concerned. It does not apply
to the output of previous cycles or to underived forms. For instance, theSCC predicts that a Stratum-1 rule like Trisyllabic Laxing applies toThe English Rhythm Rule
STRATUM 1+-affixation

Stress rules

STRATUM 2i#-affixation
Compounding=,

STRATUM 3
Regularinflection>??Cyclic rules

OUTPUT
Figure 1
sanity (cf. sane) in the cycle in which -ity is attached, but not to nightingale.
The model which was suggested by Kiparsky (1982) had Stratum 3, at
which inflectional suffixes were attached, as the last stratum. Therefore,
according to Kiparsky and Booij & Rubach, Stratum 3 is ' postcyclic' andphonological rules applying here do not obey the SCC. By the same token,
Stratum 2, at which compounding and #-affixation take place, must be
cyclic, i.e. phonological rules applying at Stratum 2 must obey the SCC.
However, no clear cases of such cyclic Stratum-2 rules have been
discovered: the only rules proposed so far are merely compatible with the1982 model.1 This model is given in Fig. 1.
A rule that distinguishes between Stratum 1 and Stratum 2 is ndeletion, which fails to apply to Stratumrl formations {damnation,
hymnal), but does apply to Stratum-2 formations (column-ish, hymnindex). However, the rule also applies to underived items (damning, hymn)(Kiparsky 1985a), and therefore does not really justify the postulation of
a separate Stratum 2: we could just as well merge Strata 2 and 3, and saythat w-deletion applies at the merged stratum. The absence of rules that
demonstrate the need for a cyclic Stratum 2 motivated Kiparsky (1985a:n. 3) to reject this stratum, and to assume that Stratum 2 and Stratum 3
form a single postcyclic stratum. One type of rule that would provide clear
motivation for Stratum 2 is one which would apply only to compounds and#-affixed forms. Such a rule would not apply to structures derived at
Stratum 1, suggesting it applies at a separate stratum, and it would not
apply to underived items, suggesting that its stratum is cyclic. It istherefore of considerable theoretical interest that the accentual treatmentof English prominence patterns yields a rule of exactly this kind. The facts
it is based on are all known from the literature (e.g. Chomsky & Halle

8
Carlos Gussenhoven
1968; Prince 1983; Gussenhoven 1986), but have not so far received anadequate analysis. It is discussed in the next section.
2.2 Initial Accent Deletion
Examples of Stratum-2 formations are given in (6). In (6a, b) two
compounds are given, while (6c, d) are derivations with -hood and -ness.
In order to derive these Stratum-2 outputs, we apparently need just a ruledeleting the accent(s) in the right-hand constituent of a compound. This
Compound rule is given in (7):2(6) a.
b.
c.
d.
(7)

[High] [Street] -> [High] [Street][[lTght][house]][keeper] -> [[tfght][house]][keeper] ->[[light] [house]] [keeper][[mother]hood][[lonely]ness]

Compound Rule
• 0 / [ * ] [ — ] (Stratum 2)

Rule (7) does not, however, suffice to give us all-correct Stratum-2
outputs. Examples of formations that are not adequately derived are givenin (8):(8) a.
b.
c.

[[Second Language] [Conference]] -»[[Second Language] [Conference]] -»• [[Second Language] [Conference]][[trial-and-error] [method]] -> [[trial-and-error] [method]] ->[[trial-and-error] [method]][[Tom Paine] [Street]] •+ [[Tom Paine] [Street]] -* [[Tom Paine][Street]]d.

[[New York]er] -» [[New York]er]e.

[[unkind]ness] -> [[unkind]ness]f.

[[archbishop] hood] -> [[archbishop] hood]

These data are considerably more subtle than those in (6), but are realenough. First, a structure like (8a) forms a minimal pair with the phrase[[second] [Language Conference]]. This contrast was accounted for by
Chomsky & Halle (1968) by means of a cyclic application of the NSR and
the Compound Rule, deriving 213 for the latter phrase and 312 for (8a).
Liberman & Prince (1977), rejecting the implications of a multivalued
feature [stress], accounted for the distinction in terms of constituency, thegeneral prominence of a constituent being determined by its position in
the metrical tree and its m-s labelling, as illustrated in (9). A correct
prediction that this configurational difference makes is that of a durational,
or rhythmic, distinction, as pointed out in Hammond (1984: 5). However,it does not explain why there is one accent, on Language, in (9a), but two

The English Rhythm Rule9
accents, one on second and one on Language, in (9b). Observe that in
citation pronunciation, two pitch peaks, one on sec- and one on Lang-, arepresent in (9b), but that (9a) lacks such a pitch peak on Sec-. Similarly,
notice how a queried intonation of (9b) can have rises on both sec- andLang-, as illustrated in (10b), but that this pronunciation is not availablefor (9a). Rather, (9a) would be pronounced with just a single rising
movement spread over Language Conference, illustrated in (10a). (Thepitch on Second is low level, and could also be high level; it could not havethe rising shape found in (10b), however.)(9) a.

R

b.

w
s
w
Second Language Conferencew
sw
second Language Conference(10) a.

ence?
Confera

Second

uage
Lang

b.

ence?
nd
a

Confer

o
sec

uage
Lang

Similar observations can be made about (8b, c). With reference to (8d—f),
the suffixal examples, notice that an archbishophood is accentually distinct
from an arch bishophood (i.e. a bishophood which is arch). We could again,
in a querying pronunciation, provide both arch and bishophood in thephrasal formation with rises, but this pronunciation is not available for[[archbishop] hood]. Yet, an archbishop is homophonous with an archbishop. Again, whereas unkind can be pronounced with an accent on un- as
well as on -kind, there is no accent on un- in unkindness. (On the stratumof affixation of un-, arch-, see §2.6 below.) To account for this lack ofinitial accent in Stratum-2 formations, Initial Accent Deletion (11) ispostulated. It captures the generalisation that after the application of theCompound Rule no accent survives in a structure derived at Stratum 2
except the last:(11) Initial Accent Deletion (IAD)* -• 0 / — • (Stratum 2)

10 Carlos Gussenhoven
Clearly, the generalisation that Initial Accent Deletion makes over
Stratum-2 formations cannot be expressed in a representation in which
the relation between the prosodic status of the target syllable and thetrigger syllable is characterised as relative. Neither a s-w labelled tree nora grid representation of the type proposed by Liberman (1975), Liberman& Prince (1977) or Selkirk (1984) can be used to express different degrees
of' weakness' relative to a given prosodic strength above the foot-level. Ina tree, a node can only be 'weak' relative to its sister, never 'very weak';and in a relative grid, a representation like (12a) is equivalent to that in(12b):(12) a.

b.
•**

Grids in which the levels can be interpreted as having categorical, nonrelative meaning, first considered in Prince (1983) and incorporated inHalle & Vergnaud (1987) and Nespor & Vogel (1989), obviously doprovide a way of representing the distinction. However, in Halle &Vergnaud (1987), this possibility is not used. In their description, thegeneralisation that Initial Accent Deletion expresses is covered by acondition on their Rhythm Rule. In Nespor & Vogel (1989), configurational differences of the sort illustrated in (12) are in fact put to work, andmay have different phonological effects. Both proposals are discussed in§2.4. First, we turn to some further data to support the accentual
characterisations given in (8).
2.3 Initial Accent Deletion and the Rhythm Rule
The most striking confirmation of the data in (8) is found in the facts ofstress shift. As is well known, there are a number of constructions inEnglish which display a curious resistance to rhythmic adjustments. In
particular, compounds whose left-hand constituent is a phrase (cf. (13)) oran adjective (cf. (14)) do not allow rhythmic readjustment, as pointed out
by Prince (1983):(13) a.
b.
c.
d.

Second Language Conference brochure
Tom Paine Street blues
Big Mac freak's delight
Hundred and Thirteenth Street blues(14) a. Chinese expert's advice (i.e. 'expert on Chinese')b. antique shop zoning board
c. Japanese teachers' conference (i.e. 'teachers of Japanese')
One generalisation that can be made about (13) and (14) is that theThe English Rhythm Rule11
adjustment-resistant structures are Stratum-2 formations. If this iscorrect, one would expect formations with Stratum-2 suffixes to show thesame resistance. This is in fact the case (Gussenhoven 1986). Examples are
given in (15):(15) a. Albert Hall-ish architecture (cf. Albert Hall's architecture)b. Third-Worldish conditions (cf. Third World conditions)c. The Forty-Niners' Annual Meeting (cf. the Forty-Ninth
Annual Meeting)d. the New Yorker's budget (cf. New York's budget)e. the cream-and brownness's impact (cf. the cream-and-brown
decor)
f. second-homeless areas (cf. second home development project)g. Piccadilly Circus-style celebration (cf. Piccadilly Circus
tradition)h. Taiwan-type food (cf. Taiwan food)
The present description predicts that if 'stress shift' from an accented
syllable to a syllable on the left is blocked, it must be the case that the lefthand syllable is unaccented. Such lack of initial accent is of course
achieved by the application of (11). In anticipation of the introduction of
the Rhythm Rule in the next section, derivations are shown of the New
Yorker's budget and Hundred and Thirteenth Street blues in (16).3 The
Rhythm Rule applies postlexically to the phrase Hundred and Thirteenth
before it is looped back to Stratum 2. At Stratum 2, Initial Accent
Deletion bleeds the Rhythm Rule by removing the initial accent, leaving
two accents in the output:(16) a.

Lexicon•#•
New, York, budget

Phrasing

New York

Rhythm Rulen/aLooping
Stratum 2
Compound Rule
IAD (11)
Phrasing
Rhythm Rule

New York]ern\a*
New Yorker*•
New Yorker's budgetn\a[the New Yorker's budget]12

Carlos Gussenhovenb. Lexicon
Phrasing
Rhythm Rule

#
# #
•
•
Hundred, Thirteenth, Street, blues#* *Hundred and Thirteenth#*
Hundred and Thirteenth

Looping*•*

Stratum 2[Hundred and Thirteenth] Street

Compound Rule

[Hundred and Thirteenth] Street

IAD (11)Hundred and Thirteenth Street

Phrasing

Hundred and Thirteenth Street blues

Rhythm Rulen\a[Hundred and Thirteenth Street blues]
The prosodic patterns of (16) clearly deviate from what may be seen as
an unmarked pattern whereby major prominences are situated at the
beginning and the end of a constituent (Bolinger 1986: 64). From thispoint of view it is remarkable that the pattern that results from IAD would
appear to be quite stable. Indeed, we would not expect frequent useof Hundred and Thirteenth Street blues to lead to a prominence shift from-teenth to Hun-. This said, it should be noted that in some derivations withagentive -er, such shifts may occur. By the side of a Third-Worldish
problem we may well get a Third-Worlder's problem. I assume this pronunciation is invited by the possibility of interpreting Third Worlder,
structurally if not semantically, as a phrase. In §3.3, the prosodic'restructuring' of morphological structure is discussed more fully.
2.4 Alternative solutions
It is easy to show that a purely phonological solution to the data in(13)—(15) cannot work. The syllable-cum-foot structure of New Yorker's
budget is fully comparable with West Yorkshire's budget, in which structure
the retraction does, however, take place. Similarly, compare Albert Hallish architecture with Albert Hawley's architecture. A stress-shift description
like that given in Selkirk (1984), for instance, would incorrectly predict
stress retraction in all examples in (15) except (15c). (In (15c), it would
incorrectly predict its absence in both examples, since the stress on
Niners'/Ninth is not immediately followed by the primary stress of
Meeting.) Although Nespor & Vogel (1989) do not discuss data like(13)—(15), it may be instructive to consider them in the light of their
proposal to deal with rhythmic readjustments in a grid in which columnheight is interpreted categorically. It will be shown that, while theirrepresentation can express the distinction between accented and unaccented prefinal feet, it cannot cope with the data presented here, because

The English Rhythm Rule
13
their non-relational grid is embedded in a theory which does not preserve
the relevant morphosyntactic information. Their theory assumes thesyntax-to-phonology mapping rules of Nespor & Vogel (1986), whichbuild an n-ary prosodic tree. This tree, in its turn, is input to the gridbuilding rules. These rules assign a first-level grid mark to every syllable,
and further-level grid marks to the DTE of each higher prosodic
constituent. As a result, each constituent corresponds to a fixed grid level(i.e. the phonological word corresponds to the third level). They define'clash' as in (17). That is, word-level prominences clash if they areseparated by maximally one syllable. The relief of the clash is achieved by
Beat Deletion (BD), which deletes either of the two clashing beats. As thedeletion of column-internal beats is not permitted, only word-level beats
can be reduced to foot-level beats, i.e. grid marks at level 4 or higher are
not deleted:
(17)

*

*

W ord

*

*

foot

* (*) *

syllable

The difficulty that this theory would have with the data in (13)—(15) is thatit takes insufficient account of the morphosyntactic sensitivity of rhythmic
adjustments in English. First, for the purposes of the grid-building rules,
Nespor & Vogel assume that there are no constituents between the w andthe 0, with the result that the representations of ((Second Language)
Conference) brochure and (Second (Language Conference)) brochure are
identical. In either case, there are four w's gathered under a single </>. Wemight try to salvage the theory by introducing a further constituent, andtherefore a further grid level, between w and <j>, and make it correspondwith the highest X° node, i.e. compounds (cf. Vogel 1989). Although we
can now express the distinction in the grid, as shown in (18), where the
new constituent is labelled CG (for Clitic Group), it is not clear how thesyntax-to-phonology mapping rules could keep Stratum-2 formations
distinct from other X° formations that do not resist rhythmic shifts (cf.
Forty-Ninth vs. Forty-Niner (cf. (15c)). Apparently, a new type of
mapping rule would be needed, one which could see if an X° was formedat Stratum 2, in order to build structures like (18).
(18) a.
^

^
CG

CO

CO

CO

CD

Second Language Conference brochure
# #
•
#
• ##
#
#
•
#
#
•

14

Carlos Gussenhoven
b.
CG

CG

CG

second Language Conference brochure
•

#

•

*

#

• #

•

*

An additional reason why their description is not up to these data is thatthe phonological effect of BD is underdetermined. Nespor & Vogel define
the configuration in which BD applies without stating which of the
clashing gridmarks is to be deleted. In (19), the structural description of(17) will cause either the stress on -dilly to be deleted or that on Circus.
However, it is the former which would be reduced. It is difficult to see how
this drawback can be remedied in a theory which does not incorporate
constituent structure in the representation on which the rhythmic adjustments are defined. Neither could BD decide which grid mark to delete
in longer phrases like the Piccadilly Circus-Soho Square area, where bothCir- and So- need to retain their grid marks. If this phrase is a single (p,rule (17) will indiscriminately identify four grid marks as deletable.
(19)
#•

##

*#

Piccadilly Circus tradition
Thirdly, it would seem that more than one syllable can intervene between
the clashing columns. In an informal pronunciation of (19), it would benatural to reduce the stress on Circus after the stress on -dilly had been
reduced (cf. a possible Oxfordshire Circus tradition). Thus, a non-relative
grid could in principle be used to express the rhythmic adjustments
discussed here, but to do so we would have to redefine the syntax-tophonology mapping rules to make it possible to refer to the derivational
history of words (Stratum-2 formations), and would have to include
constituency, while the structural description of the rhythm rule would
have to be more liberal than that in (17).
It has in fact been recognised by several authors that the reason
rhythmic readjustment is excluded in (13) and (14) is a structural one(Prince 1983; Halle & Vergnaud 1987; Kager & Visch 1988). The latter
two give rival accounts of the data in (13) and (14), both of which rely on
the fact that the embedded structure has a strong left-hand and a weakright-hand constituent. Halle & Vergnaud's solution is to add a condition
to the Rhythm Rule, to the effect that shift is blocked when the head (orThe English Rhythm Rule
15
DTE) of the subconstituent within which the shift is to take place is not
located in the last word (Halle & Vergnaud 1987: 267). Such a condition
would block the rule in, for instance, Hundred and Thirteenth Street blues,
because in the subconstituent within which the stress might shift,Hundred and Thirteenth Street, the greatest prominence is found on
Thirteenth, while Street is the last word. Apart from the stipulative natureof Halle & Vergnaud's solution, it fails to account for the data in (15),where the last word is in fact the head of the subconstituent concerned,
but where the shift is just as bad as in (14) and (15). The same argument
can be used against Kager & Visch's (1988) proposal that rhythmic shift
is blocked in strong domains of a metrical tree ('The Strong Domain
Principle'). Their principle could not prevent stress shift from applying to(15), since there would not be a branch New York which was strong withrespect to -er. Rather, New and Yorker would be sisters in a domain which
is weak with respect to budget, and stress shift would incorrectly be
predicted to apply. Moreover, both proposals fail to bring out theconnection between the blocking of stress shift and the fact that thestructures in which stress shift is blocked fail to attract an initial pitchaccent even in other contexts, as was illustrated for Second Language
Conference in §2.2. Both proposals, therefore, must be rejected.

2.5 Initial Accent Deletion and the Strict Cycle Condition
Initial Accent Deletion provides evidence for the lexical organisation
proposed in Kiparsky (1982), where Stratum 2 contains compounding and#-derivation, but excludes inflection, for which a separate Stratum 3 wasassumed. Moreover, the rule is cyclic, and thus conforms to the assumption that only the last lexical stratum can be non-cyclic (Kiparsky
1985a; Booij & Rubach 1987). That^is, it does not apply to underived
forms {chimpanzee; cf. chimpanzee blues). Neither does it apply to forms
derived at Stratum 1 (Japanese, vice presidential, indemnification; cf. vicepresidential car, Japanese chairs, etc.), or to forms derived at Stratum 3, asshown by inflected forms like dry-cleaned, upgraded, unsuspected (cf. drycleaned garments, upgraded salaries, unsuspected surprises). There is, however, one aspect in which Initial Accent Deletion deviates from what has
been assumed about cyclic lexical rules. Strictly speaking, while the ruleindeed applies only to Stratum-2 formations, the domain in which the ruleeffectively applies is contained within the previous cycle. In all theexamples presented above, both the accent to be deleted and the righthand accent triggering the rule appear outside the morpheme that was
attached at Stratum 2. In the formulations of Mascard (1976) and Halle &Mohanan (1985), cyclic rules cannot apply in such domains, and a rule like
Initial Accent Deletion, which applies to all formations of some morphological stratum regardless of the phonological content of the morphemes attached there, is predicted not to exist. A simple solution to thisproblem is to include a right-hand boundary in the context of the rule, to16 Carlos Gussenhoven
represent the end of the Stratum-2 formation. Since the relevant morphemes are all attached on the right, the rule now makes reference to thenew material, and the SCC is obeyed. The fact that Initial Accent
Deletion effectively applies in the domain of the old cycle is in a sense
accidental. The analysis predicts that if there had been an accented
Stratum 2 suffix (a theoretical possibility allowed in our analysis), derivations with this suffix would end up without any accent in the base. For
some speakers, the suffix -esque indeed wipes out all accents in the base, as
illustrated by Kafkaesque, Rembrandtesque (cf. '*a Kafkaesque situation,**a Rembrandtesque style). But now notice that inclusion of the right-handbracket causes the rule to delete only a single accent in each formation, viz.
the penultimate accent. Since the rule will have to delete all non-final
accents in formations like [[Dundee] [esque]], we will add dots in thecontext between the accent and boundary, to serve as an arbitrary
character. This will have the effect of making the rule iterative. Accordingly, we revise (11) here as (11'):(IT)

Initial Accent Deletion• ^ 0 / — * ... ] (Stratum 2)

2.6 No prefixes at Stratum 2
Words like unkind, non-legible, archbishop, psychosomatic cannot be
Stratum-2 formations. Neither the Compound Rule nor Initial Accent
Deletion is applicable to them. Earlier treatments have assumed thatprefixes like ex-, non-, un- are affixed at Stratum 2, because they do not
trigger Stratum-1 phonological rules (cf. *nollegible, but illegible). This
criterion forces attachment after Stratum 1. However, since the Compound Rule and Initial Accent Deletion prevent them from being
included in Stratum 2, items like ex-priest, unkind must be formed after
this stratum. Since Stratum 3 would appear to contain no prosodic rules,
these formations can be included there, together with 'phrasal com4c

4t

9k

ft

ft

ft

pounds' like psychosomatic, court-martial and town hall, which similarly
retain accents on both constituents. Stratum 3, then, is truly 'stressneutral': there are no prosodic rules that apply here. An interesting
contrast, incidentally, can be found in variations of English which, unlike
AmE and southern BrE, have a foot rather than an appendix for Stratum1 prefixes (Northern English varieties, Scottish English: Wells 1982:362). In these varieties, accented initial syllables of ex-priest, re-cover, etc.,
contrast with the unaccented initial syllables of express, recover, etc.,
although the vowel qualities are the same. The contrast shows up
particularly clearly in the context of the Rhythm Rule (cf. the re-covered
umbrella vs. the recovered umbrella).*The English Rhythm Rule17

3 The Rhythm RuleIn this section, it is shown that an accentual rhythm rule accounts for the'stress-shift' data that have been presented in the literature. Prince's TypeA and Type B data are accounted for in §3.1. It will be argued that thecyclic nature of these derivations should be seen as the effect of the
Rhythm Rule's sensitivity to prosodic constituency. In §3.2, we will seethat our Rhythm Rule does not have exceptions, and has the characteristics
of a postlexical rule. §3.3, which deals with Prince's Type C data as well
as data from Hayes (1984), argues that postlexical constituent sensitivity
differs from lexical cyclicity in the way material outside the cycle can
influence the application of a rule ('eurhythmy': Hayes 1984). The
important role that eurhythmy has been given in recent treatments,
however, is diminished, because some of the examples presented in theliterature in fact appear to require a structural explanation.
3.1 Postlexical cyclicity
The Rhythm Rule, given in (20), claims that rhythmic shifts of prominence of the type exemplified by fifteen vs. fifteen men are not shifts at all,but rather deletions of non-peripheral accents. Home (1990), basing
herself on phonetic data, arrives at the same analysis. The description also
conforms to the views expressed by Bolinger (cf. also van der Hulst 1984:
175ff; Ladd & Monaghan 1987):
This rather different view of secondary stress puts us in a better position
to understand the so-called 'shifts' of stress. If the secondary has about
equal claim to prominence, nothing is lost, as far as accenting a word isconcerned, if the secondary picks up the accent on that word in theutterance, with the primary getting no accent (or a reduced accent). It is
not a matter of 'shifting' the stress, since stress as a potential for accentis already there; it is rather the choice of the secondary over the primary
in a situation where some intonational advantage accrues.
(Bolinger 1986: 60)(20) Rhythm Rule (RR)
Rule (20) is a postlexical 0-span rule (Selkirk 1981; Nespor & Vogel 1986:177), which works from left to right. Since, again, the dots are used as anarbitrary character, and may stand for a further accent, (20) can apply
twice in the same domain. Fig. 2 presents the model discussed in §2, withthe addition of a postlexical component. As shown in Selkirk (1984: 194),
phrase-level rhythmic adjustments are unmistakably cyclic. The theory of
Lexical Phonology predicts that postlexical rules should apply noncyclically. This is interpreted to mean that the SCC does not holdpostlexically, not that the rule does not respect constituent structure. That

18

Carlos Gussenhoven

Underived stems
STRATUM 1
be-, con-, in-, re- ...
-al, -ance, -ic, -ity ...

(T-structure building
F-structure building
Accent assignment rules©-structure building

STRATUM 2
Compounding

Compound Rule
Initial Accent Deletion-hood, -ish, -ly, -ness

STRATUM 3
Inflection
arch-,

ex-, non-,

un-

...

Phrasal compounds
Lexical representation
POSTLEXICALSTRUCTURE
Phrases
Sentences^-structure building
Rhythm Rule
I-, U-structure building

T
OUTPUT
Figure 2

is, the cyclic application of (20) is assumed to be the effect of the rule's
sensitivity to (p. Within this domain, it will apply in lower constituents
before it applies in higher ones, a mode of application which is in no way
unexpected. Postlexical sandhi rules (Russian or Dutch regressive voicing,
English place assimilations of alveolars) apply more readily across lower
than across higher constituent boundaries, which fact is easily explained
if we assume that such rules apply within lower constituents before they
apply within higher ones (Loots 1983; Wells 1987), with the point at
which the rule peters out being determined by speech rate (Selkirk 1984).
Since phonological words in which the Rhythm Rule is applicable (e.g.
individualistic) are embedded in 0's and tfi's may be embedded in super<p's, a 'cyclic' effect is to be observed in more complex phonological

The English Rhythm Rule19
phrases. Consider, for example, Prince's (1983) 'Type A' data, rightbranching NPs, an example of which is given in (21):(21)

Lexicon thTrteen Japanese bamboo tables
RR (20)bamboo tables
RR (20)Japanese bamboo tables
RR (20) thirteen Japanese bamboo tables

The Rhythm Rule could apply a second time in the higher domains so as
to remove either or both of the accents on Jap- and bam-. In order for thismode of application to be possible, it must be assumed, contra Nespor &Vogel (1986), that the prosodic constituent tree is binary-branching, forotherwise the constituents in which the Rhythm Rule is to apply firstcannot be identified. If (21) were represented as a flat structure of four w's
dominated by the same 0, incorrect outputs could be obtained. If westarted on the left, for instance, and deleted the first two accents, theincorrect * Thirteen Japanese bamboo tables would result. Likewise, Prince's'Type B' data, left-branching NPs like Woodrow Wilson Avenue general
store or Alewife Brook Parkway subway station (from Prince 1983), canonly be cyclically derived. A sample derivation is given in (22):(22)

Lexicon Alewife Brook Parkway subway station
CR (7)
subway station
RR (20) Alewife Brook Parkway
RR (20) Alewife Brook Parkway subway station(23)

Lexicon New York Daily NewsRR (20) New York Daily NewsRR (20) New York Daily News

Also, when the right-hand constituent contains two accents, the correct
results are derived, as shown in (23): in New York Daily Nezvs, theprominence on Daily cannot shift to York, a pattern derived by the gridbased description of Selkirk (1984) (Gussenhoven 1986). Only equal
prominence is possible, if the Rhythm Rule applies a second time on thesame cycle.
Observe that descriptions which view the rhythmic pattern of, forinstance, bamboo in bamboo chairs as arising from a shift of prominencefrom -boo to bam- will have to treat phonetically similar cases like three redchairs as cases of a strengthening of the prominence on three, since thewords three and red start out with equal prominence. The first type ofoperation is called 'beat movement' and the second 'beat addition' in
Selkirk (1984) (cf. also Libermari & Prince 1977; Prince 1983; Hayes
1984; Halle & Vergnaud 1987: 266). As Kager & Visch (1988) point out,
the remarkable similarities between rhythmic shift and rhythmic strength-

20Carlos Gussenhoven
ening stand in need of an explanation. Of course, in the present account,no such undesirable distinctions can arise.
3.2 Exceptionless application
The Rhythm Rule has no 'lexical' characteristics. As observed above, it is
not subject to the SCC: the rule applies to lexical items like individuality
just as it does to phrasal formations. Moreover, while it is a styledependent, variable rule, it is exceptionless. The exceptionality noted by
Kaisse (1987) with respect to *bbese men and Chinese men, and used by her
to support the two-stratum postlexical model of Kaisse (1985), is, in thepresent description, not a property of the Rhythm Rule, but of the words
concerned. A word like obese, whose first syllable is never a foot (cf. §1.2),
cannot undergo rhythmic shift, since it contains only one accent. By
contrast, a word like Chinese, which contains two accents, will undergo theRhythm Rule if an accent follows in the same <j). Likewise, the phrasal
good-looking is accentually distinct from a word like Montana: thedifference between Liberman & Prince's (1977) good-looking cowboy andMontana cowboy follows from the fact that the structural description of(20) is only met in the former phrase. A second apparently lexical propertyof the rule discussed by Kaisse is that its output can be lexicalised. Since
in some kinds of English abstract has come to exist alongside abstract withthe specialised meaning 'non-figurative (art)', such lexicalisation would
indeed seem possible. But in the present proposal, the representation of
the output of the Rhythm Rule in abstract art contains no features, feature
values or structure which do not also occur in lexical representation.
Hence, it is possible to reanalyse that output as a lexical representation.
(Such reanalysis is of course impossible in the case of postlexical outputs
which contain phonological information that cannot exist in lexical
representation, like aspirated plosives or alveolar flaps.) A third property
that Kaisse claims for postlexical rules is that their output should be
invisible to rules of poetry. Since the metre in (24a) requires Tennessee tohave undergone the rhythm rule, it cannot be postlexical, according to
Kaisse. Her claim represents an extension of the claim by Kiparsky(1985b) that poetic metres may refer only to categories that are present inlexical representation (cf. lexical tone in Chinese, as opposed to intonation
in English). The extension of this claim to the output of postlexical rules
is, however, not otherwise supported. For instance, in British English,'linking r' must be inserted postlexically, yet is relevant to rhymes (e.g.
cataract rhymes with scatter act or El Fatah-r-act). This postlexical rule
introduces a phonological category, the segment [r], which already figuresin lexical representations. Likewise, our Rhythm Rule produces outputs
that can be represented with the help of phonological resources that areavailable in the lexicon (viz. accented feet). Kaisse's claim would thus
appear to be too strong. Incidentally, in the present analysis, a'non-shifted' pronunciation of Tennessee, as in (24b), would also

The English Rhythm Rule21
have undergone the Rhythm Rule, as the accent on Tenn- would bedeleted:(24) a. A Tennessee drummer named Bette (Kaisse 1987)
b. In Memphis, in West Tennessee
3.3 Eurhythmy and restructuring
The application of the Rhythm Rule is not always determined by syntactic
structure. One way in which deviations may arise is in response to atendency to produce equal spacings of accents, a phenomenon termed'eurhythmy' in Hayes, who codified it in his Disyllabic Rule and Quadrisyllabic Rule. In (25), an example from Bolinger (1986:68) is reproduced. In (25a), the rule applies as expected, but in (25b) it does not first
apply to the inner domain Pennsylvania railroad, but rather seems to apply
non-cyclically to the outer domain:(25) a. the Pennsylvania railroadb. the main Pennsylvania railroad
Example (25b) conforms more closely to an ideal alternating pattern thanif the rule had first been applied in Pennsylvania railroad so as to delete theaccent of -va-. The existence of eurhythmy does not contradict theassumptions of the model in Fig. 2. The presence of the material outside
the domain within which the Rhythm Rule is applicable indeed leads one
to expect it to influence the application of postlexical rules, if the
distinction between lexical cyclicity, for which outside material is irrelevant, and postlexical constituent-sensitivity is to be meaningful. Also,
one would expect this influence to be variable and non-obligatory: theRhythm Rule is a variable rule, and eurhythmy can therefore only be afactor influencing its application, along with factors like speech rate andstyle. This explains why a 'cyclic' pronunciation of (25b) {the main
Pennsylvania railroad), if less likely, is in fact well-formed. It is for thisreason that we need to reconsider one of Hayes' central examples todemonstrate the working of his two eurhythmy rules. One, the Quadrisyllabic Rule, stipulates that spacings of beats four syllables apart are
preferred to other spacings, and the second, the Disyllabic Rule, stipulates
a similar preference for spacings of two syllables apart. Hayes provides(26) to illustrate the working of these principles:(26) a.

*
•
•

•

•

—*
•

#
*

(a) hundred thirteen men

b.
#
#

- •#
•

*

#
*

one thirteen Main (Street)

Hayes points out that both structures stand to gain by an application ofstress shift at the higher level, but that 'internal' stress shift in thirteen

22 Carlos Gussenhoven
only takes place in (a), since only there does the Disyllabic Rule allow it.
Notice that the pattern given for (26a) is virtually obligatory: a pronunciation a hundred thirteen men is deviant to a much greater extent thanis the cyclic pronunciation of (25b). The fact that the deviation iscategorical rather than relative leads one to suspect that something else isresponsible for the pronunciation of (26a). In order to dispel the belief that
it is eurhythmy that causes (26a) and (26b) to be pronounced differently,
we need to recognise first that in addition to the difference in the numberof inter-stress syllables, there is another difference: in (26a) we have anumeral, while in (26b) we have a sequence of numerals. The pair in (27)shows that the difference in the number of syllables is irrelevant, sinceboth examples behave identically, and differ from (26a):(27) a. a hundred thirteen Main Street (i.e. 100.13)
b. one thirteen Main Street
If eurhythmy is not involved, then what is it that causes the difference
between (26a) and (26b)? Recall that part of the motivation for the
prosodic hierarchy is that, although the prosodic tree is built on the basisof the syntactic tree, there is no necessary isomorphism between them
(Selkirk 1981; Nespor & Vogel 1986). Numerals evidently present a casein point: (26a), which has left-branching syntactic structure, is pronounced with right-branching phonological structure, a restructuring thatapplies inside numerals generally (but not to sequences of numerals). In(28) the derivations of a hundred thirteen men and hundred thirteen Main
{Street) are given. Notice that if RR applies both in the lower and in thehigher constituent, so that both accents of thirteen are deleted in (28a) as
well as in (28b), there need not be homophony, because, as is explained in§4.2 below, preboundary lengthening will cause the final syllable ofthirteen to be longer in (28a) than in (28b):(28) a.

Morpho-[[[a hundred] Num [thirteen] Num ][Main Street] N ] N p
syntax•**

Prosody[[a hundred

thirteen]^RR[a hundred

thirteen] ^RR[[a hundred*[Main S t r e e t ] ^**•thirteen][Main Street] ^ ](jf

*

*

*

b. Morpho- [[a hundred
thirteen] N u m [men] N ] N p
syntax•# #«Prosody [[a hundred]. [thirteen] ^#RR[thirteen
RR#[[a hundred], [thirteen

The English Rhythm Rule23
The restructuring is indeed tied to numerals, not to the particularsyntactic configuration presented by (26a). For instance, in [[[hundred andtwo] thousand] men], where the bracketing is consistently left-branching,
we similarly get a restructured pronunciation [hundred and [[two thousand]men]]. While there will be cases of restructuring that do not involve
numerals (cf. Prince 1983:45-46), we generally find that in Prince's(1983) 'Type C data, whose bracketing corresponds to the syntactic
bracketing of [[hundred thirteen] men], the Rhythm Rule applies cyclically,
regardless of the number of syllables, as shown in (29). That is, rhythmic
adjustment in Californian, Japanese, etc., does not take place:(29) a.
b.
c.
d.

a North Californian accenta northern Japanese accent
with ethnic Chinese backing
Maine—New York railway

Our analysis accounts for these data, as shown in (30). Notice that RR
could fail to apply in the second cycle, so as to produce (29c). There is noway, however, in which the impossible with ethnic Chinese backing could be
produced. We conclude, therefore, that eurhythmy may have a smallerrole to play that has been assumed. In particular, numerals deviate fromwhat our analysis predicts because they receive right-branching prosodic
trees. It is this, not eurhythmy, which explains their apparent exceptionality
in allowing 'internal rhythm'.
(30)

LexiconRR (20)RR (20)ethnic Chinese backing
ethnic Chinesewith ethnic Chinese backing

In addition to numerals, other data have been presented to demonstrate
the existence of 'internal rhythm'. Both Hayes (1984) and Selkirk (1984)
present data like those in (31), in which an adverb of grade modifies theadjective in an NP:(31) a.
b.
c.

an almost hard-boiled egg
a slightly underripe pear
rather lily-white hands

Our analysis does not produce these outputs. In (31a), for instance, theRhythm Rule would be expected to apply first in the constituent almost
hard-boiled, predicting that boiled is stronger than hard, or equally strong,
if the Rhythm Rule were also to apply in the constituent almost hard-boiled
egg. However, in these examples, the issue is really the variability in theprominence of the A in [[A[BC]]D]: modifiers like almost, rather often
remain unaccented. In rather lily-white hands, the structural description of(20) is only met in the stretch from lily to white, predicting accents on justthose items. If instead we do accent the modifier, our judgement would bethat the internal adjustment does not take place, and that 'even stress'
results for the adjective (cf. a virtually unknown athlete).

24 Carlos Gussenhoven
To conclude, the Rhythm Rule is a variable, exceptionless, postlexical
0-span rule. Its output may deviate from the expected pattern because (a)outside material can induce eurhythmy, a general tendency towards analternating pattern, and (b) left-branching syntactic structure is restructured to right-branching phonological structure over numerals andthe item they premodify.

4 Unaccented speech
In this section, three issues are discussed. First, in §4.1, the accentdeletion analysis is related to the presence of focus-sensitive sentenceaccents. Then, in §4.2, we address the question of how 'stress shift' is tobe accounted for in unaccented speech. Finally, in §4.3, we discuss thequestion whether, in unaccented speech, words like California, whichin traditional terms have a secondary stress followed by a primary stress,
need to be distinguished from words like salamander, in which a primarystress is followed by a secondary stress.
4.1 Sentence accents
Most utterences have fewer accents than are preserved by the three accentdeletion rules discussed in §§2-3. At the level of the utterance, accents
express focus, and unfocused constituents are not accented. If the context
for (32a), a possible output of our accent deletion rules, were to be 'rent
garments', a big tear is likely to lose its accents (cf. (32b)), while in acontext in which 'left trouser-legs' were the topic of discussion, (32c)would be expected. Moreover, on most current accounts (Schmerling
1976; Gussenhoven 1984; Selkirk 1984; Rochemont 1986), not all focused
constituents need be accented. Specifically, a focused predicate may
remain unaccented when it is adjacent to a focused argument. The rulethat is to bring this about must in the present description be interpreted
as an accent deletion rule. For instance, in an all-focus pronunciation,(32a) may lose its accents on the predicate is in your left trouser-leg, which
also gives (32c):(32) a. There's a big tear in your left trouser-leg
b. There's a big tear in your left trouser-leg
c. There's a big tear in your left trouser-leg
A deletion account obviates all the problems that arise in the determination of which syllable or syllables in the focused constituent are to
be accented. As stressed by Selkirk (1984: 269ff), it is not the case thata representation in terms of relative 'stress', whether represented inlabelled tree-structure or in a grid-configuration, provides the appropriate
information about where pitch accents are to be situated. As she points
out, LAKE HILL and Lake HILL (where capitalisation represents the presence

The English Rhythm Rule25
of a pitch accent) have identical metrical structures, which therefore
cannot encode the distinction between these forms. Selkirk concludes thata free (though focus-sensitive) pitch accent assignment rule needs to be
added to the theory, which can assign pitch accents to semanticallytransparent constituents. But this solution, too, seems inadequate. For
instance, how do we know that for an explicit pronunciation of California
we need to assign a pitch accent both to the weak branch and to the strong
branch of this word ? There is clearly no sense in which Cali- is asemantically transparent constituent. Rather, what needs to be expressedis that a single focus for the word California may result in the presence oftwo pitch accents. It is in fact frequently the case that focused constituentscontain more than one pitch accent, though we cannot meaningfully saythat each of those pitch accents corresponds to a separate focus. For
instance, if we find that in a sentence like Sean Connery will attend there
are two accents, we would like to say that these accents are there for thesame reason that only a single accent is present in Connery will attend or
in Sean will attend, and attribute the presence of the two accents in Sean
Connery to the fact that this structure happens to contain two accentablesyllables. Conversely, some multi-word structures contain only a single
accented syllable. In addition to items like second Language Conference,
discussed at length in §2, a structure like the sound [ai] ,(cf. also the book
Genesis, the film Casablanca, the letter a) can receive a pitch accent only on[ai], while a phrase like the sound eye ('the healthy eye') contains two
accentable syllables, sound and eye. If we say that in this latter phrase soundis separately and additionally focused because it is a meaningful word, thequestion arises why we cannot separately focus sound in the former
structure, or indeed, why we cannot separately focus the element eye in aconceivable compound sound eye (' eye that registers sound'). In a deletion
analysis, such facts follow directly fron. the presence of the appropriate
accentual configurations when sentence-level focus rules apply: if aconstituent is accented, all its accents are preserved, and if it is not, all its
accents are deleted.5
4.2 'Stress shift' without accent
Our account explains the facts of rhythmic adjustment as the result of therule-governed placement of pitch accents, and thus takes a similar view ofthese facts to Bolinger (1965a, 1986). A possible objection to this view isthat unaccented speech displays rhythmic variation just as does accented
speech (cf. van Heuven 1987), and that an accent-based description
therefore leaves part of the data unaccounted for. This section intends toshow that nothing needs to be done in order to explain the facts, if wemake the - independently justifiable - assumption that the durational
structure reflects prosodic constituent structure. Prosodic constituentslike the syllable, the foot, the phonological word, the phonological phrase,the intonational phrase and the utterance provide domains for theapplication of phonological rules (Selkirk 1981; Nespor & Vogel 1986).

26 Carlos Gussenhoven
Frequently, reference is made to a phonological rule of 'pre-boundary
lengthening', according to which the duration of a final string of segments
before some boundary is increased. Although no consensus exists about
what constituents trigger final lengthening (cf. Beckman & Edwards
1987), the assumption here is that all phonological constituents trigger
final lengthening, including the syllable. For higher constituents, this
proposal makes similar predictions to Selkirk's (1984) silent demibeats.
Some durational minimal pairs are given in (33):(33)

asyllablea

fin al ly

fine ly

F

F

F
/ \
Andy's

(0

0)

(0

Pword

sin

tax

syntaxPphraseThere was one helping

foot^,

1 1
An desThere was one helping(sc. of food)Even I call Mary, my dear friend
I

Even I call Mary my dear friend
Thus, the syllable [1] in finally is longer than the non-syllable [1] infinely. Or, the foot An- in Andes is longer than the non-foot An- in Andy's

The English Rhythm Rule
27
(Dasher & Bolinger 1982). The phonological word sin is longer than the
non-word syn- (cf. Nakatani & SchafTer 1978), while similar remarks apply
to the examples for the <j> and the I (Selkirk 1986; cf. also Bolinger &Gerstman 1957; Lieberman 1967: 156). As a result of final lengthening,
instances of what might be interpreted as ' shifts' of durational prominence
are directly encoded as configurational differences in the representation.
Consider as an example the difference between the two pronunciations ofJapanese in (34):(34) a.

U

(O

A
F

F

A i
(I don't SPEAK) Japanese
b.

Ail

.

(I don't LIKE) Japanese chairs
A rhythmic-shift account would transfer some prominence from -nese toJap- in (34b), and leave the prominence pattern of (34a) unaffected. In thepresent account, no prominence is shifted in either case, and neither is one
prominence pattern derived from the other. Rather, the different durational structures of the two instances of this word directly follow from thephonological representation. In (34a) the syllable -nese gets the durational
benefit of final lengthening due to its final position in each of a number of
constituents (F, w, <fi, I and U), whereas -nese in (b) is only F- and to-final.
Relative to the word in (34a), therefore, Japanese in (34b) will have a low
degree of durational prominence on its final syllable, which may well giverise to a sensation of rhythmic shift within the word. While this sensation
will correspond to some phonetic reality, the point here is that there isnothing we need to do in order to explain it.
2

PHO8

28

Carlos Gussenhoven
Notice that the postulation of a rule to effect a rhythmic shift would run
into problems, precisely because of this gradual nature of pre-boundary
lengthening. If we were to pronounce (34b) with two separate ^'s forJapanese and chairs, or as two separate I's (pretending that chairs was a
vocative, say), an impression of greater prominence on Jap- than -nesemight well disappear. A description that would translate this impression
into a blocking of the Rhythm Rule would leave the fact that there is stilla durational difference between -nese in (34a) and -nese as pronounced
before the vocative unexpressed: in both cases a ' shift' account could only
say that no shift had occurred. We conclude that the explanatory power ofa rhythm rule would in fact be smaller than that of the phonologicalrepresentation itself, provided the idea of a general constituent-final
lengthening rule is adopted.
4.3 Primary vs. secondary word stress

The autonomous representation of the different parameters contributing
to the impression of 'stress' makes the prediction that phonological rules
refer to these different elements separately. This claim has been defended
in this article to the extent that accent was shown to be manipulated
independently of foot structure by the Compound Rule, Initial Accent
Deletion and the Rhythm Rule. Rules building and deleting feet werereferred to in §1.2, where Stratum-1 prosody was briefly dealt with. The
question arises if there are rules that refer to the head of the word. In otherwords, does English possess rules that make a distinction between'primary stress' and 'secondary stress', either in a situation where theword is accented, or in a situation where it is not? Although there havebeen claims that such rules exist, it is difficult to find evidence for them.
In this section, a number of potential candidates are dealt with. Then, twocases are discussed in which the distinction between ' primary stress' and' secondary stress' is needed in Dutch. The tentative conclusion will bedrawn that while English words are ' headed', it is difficult to find data thatunambiguously show that this aspect of the representation is evercrucially referred to.
One claim that has been made (Hayes 1984; Nespor & Vogel 1989) isthat' secondary stresses' and ' primary stresses' are not treated as equal by
the Rhythm Rule. The claim is that stress shift is more likely in Tennessee
relatives than in Tennessee abbreviations. The results of one of the experiments in Cooper & Eady (1986), which addressed precisely thisissue, show that there is no difference in the way these two structures aretreated. Other claims concern unaccented speech. The difference between
primary and secondary word stress could be expected to show up in adifference in durational structure. For example, Hermes in (35a) might
have a longer first syllable and a shorter second than Burmese in (35b):(35) a. I didn't say 'Hermes'b. I didn't say 'Burmese'

The English Rhythm Rule29
In addition, a final H % boundary tone after a falling contour on DlDn't
might well be timed such that the last syllable of Burmese has a rising
movement, while a relatively greater part of the last syllable of Hermes may
be high-pitched. However, there has been no experimental verification ofthese intuitions. Vanderslice & Ladefoged (1972) observed that empiricalevidence for a distinction between primary and secondary stress inunaccented conditions is lacking, a conclusion which tallies with theresearch data referred to in Couper-Kuhlen (1986: 24), e.g. Sharp (1958)
and Faure et al. (1980).6
A suggestion made by two reviewers is that a difference may (also) be
found in the duration of the preceding syllable. Thus, HATE may be longer
in / HATE alligators! than in / HATE allegrettos! (cf. also the rule of Beat
Insertion of Nespor & Vogel 1989). The suggestion seems worth investigating. An effect of this nature has been found for syllables before feet,regardless of primary or secondary stress, by Van Lancker et al. (1988).
Another reviewer suggests that the distinction is relevant in emphatic
speech, which is generally characterised by the presence of more accentsthan other speech styles have (cf. Bolinger 1986: 83). For example, in long
Stratum-2 formations, like a contact-and-destroy method, there may well
be an accent on con (as opposed to -tact) in You dummy! We used the contact
and destroy method!, said with L on the first and HL on the second accent.
That is, we would appear to have to restore the accent in precisely the
position where it was removed by Initial Accent Deletion in the lexicon.
It is indeed the case that if contact were replaced with postpone or maintain,
the emphatic accent would go to the (primarily stressed) second syllable.
The question here centres on the theoretical status of 'restore'. If we use
forms like [ju wil] for Qjul], is it the case that we undo the effect ofcontraction, or have we rather not applied the contraction ? Lexical rules
can be optional (Kiparsky ms), and, as the reviewer suggests, emphatic
speech may well be a condition in which accent deletion rules are lesslikely to apply. The results of psycholinguistic research suggest thedistinction is not exploited in perceptual processing tasks. Cutler (1986)
finds that English listeners do not use word stress in word recognition,even though 'it is unusual to find a source of potential information which
is not exploited in speech recognition'. This suggests that primary stressis not a reliable property of English words. The neutralisation of accented
and unaccented feet in unaccented speech contrasts with the preservationof foot structure. Cutler & Norris (1988) found that English listeners detecta monosyllabic word which forms the first syllable of a two-syllable
stimulus faster when the second syllable was reduced (e.g. mint in mintesh)than when it was unreduced (e.g. mint in mintayf), and argue on the basisof this finding for a word recognition strategy in which unreduced
syllables are taken to be potential word beginnings. If this interpretationof their results is correct, then obviously foot structure must be a robust
characteristic of English.
The question whether a representation of primary word stress is needed
independently of accent thus requires a careful answer. Although there are2-2

30 Carlos Gussenhoven
no unambiguous research data to back this claim up, there are indications
that it is in fact present in the representation and is reflected in minor, lowlevel timing effects. Also, reactions by native speakers suggest that thesensation of programming word stress in unaccented speech is quite
strong, which suggests that w must be assumed to be a headed constituent.
Perhaps we should put it this way: it is not possible, barring conscious
efforts to artificially enhance the auditory salience of primary stresses, tomispronounce No, said the Spanish teacher such that instead of thecompound Spanish teacher the phrase Spanish teacher is heard, or viceversa (cf. Schmerling 1976: 27), or indeed to hear that speakers use anincorrect stress pattern on alligators or allegrettos in a contexts like /HATE...
While such mistakes may be programmable, there are nophonological rules to make them apparent.
In order to illustrate what reference to word stress would involve, it isinstructive to consider two such cases in Dutch. First, Dutch, like German(Kiparsky 1966), Danish (Rischel 1983 : 67) and Swedish (Home personalcommunication), has stress shift in unaccented speech. Kager & Visch(1988) give compounds like [nood[toe stand]] ('emergency in-state', i.e.
'state of emergency'), \band\op name]] ('tape on-take', i.e. 'tape recording'), in which the (unaccented) right-hand constituent is itself compound.
In this context, the embedded compound has a weak—strong pronunciation, which contrasts with the strong-weak pronunciation it has inother contexts (whether accented or not). Such shifts do not occur inEnglish (Selkirk 1984: 69). Second, the distinction is referred to by anintonational spreading rule. Consider (34), from Gussenhoven (1988),
which illustrates an intonation contour like the English 'vocative chant'.
While in English, a pronunciation of Abernathy with this tune has twodescending level pitches, on Aber- and -nathy respectively (Liberman1975), Dutch can have three: on Aber-, -na- and -thy. In multi-word postnuclear stretches of speech, such level pitches begin at the primarilystressed syllable of every major-class lexical word, as well as on the last
syllable. (In (36), niet ('not') and the article het do not start a new level.)Thus, the noun 'antwoord begins a new level at its first syllable; however,
if 'antwoord is replaced with kan'toor ('office'), the pitch level of -teen het
would continue on kan-, the third level starting only at -toor. Thus, Dutch
has at least two phonological rules that require an accent-independent
representation of primary word stress:(36)

Je moet niet me-teen het antwoord ge-ven
You must not at-once the answer giveThe English Rhythm Rule

31

5 Summary
In order to account for the accentual and rhythmical structure of English,a binary-branching prosodic constituent structure is assumed, in which
minimally the syllable and the foot must be headed. Feet are potentiallymarked as accented. This representation makes it possible to describe theprominence patterns of word groups as resulting from three accentdeletion rules, the Compound Rule, the Initial Accent Deletion Rule andthe Rhythm Rule. It was shown that the structural change effected by
Initial Accent Deletion cannot be expressed in theories which represent
stress as a relative concept. Moreover, this rule, which like the Compound
rule is a lexical rule, provided evidence for the existence of a stratum in thelexical phonology of English in which compounding and so-called ClassII derivation take place. The Rhythm Rule is a postlexical rule, which wasshown to apply to the output of the other two rules. Without the aid of any
conditions or constraints, it accounted effortlessly for the stress-shift data
presented in the recent literature. It could moreover be shown thatapparent cases of stress shift in unaccented speech (in which the Rhythm
Rule does not apply) should not in fact be viewed as the output of any
stress-shift rule at all, but should be explained as the effect of preboundary lengthening as applying to the different constituents in the
prosodic hierarchy. It was argued that an analysis of sentence accentuation
whereby focused constituents have to be assigned accents can run into
problems that do not exist in a ' deaccenting' analysis, in which nonfocused constituents are deprived of their accents. Finally, it was argued
that English, unlike Dutch, lacks phonological rules that refer to primary
word stress, and that, at best, primary stress may reveal itself in low-level
timing distinctions.
NOTES

*

Parts of the material discussed in this article were included in papers presented
in 1986/87 at University College London, the University of Amsterdam, theUniversity of Essex and the 14th International Congress of Linguists (Berlin).
I should like to thank Dwight Bolinger, Rene Kager, Paul Kiparsky, Bob Ladd,
Aditi Lahiri, April McMahon, Anneke Neijt, Iggy Roca, Lisa Selkirk and Leo
Wetzels for their comments on earlier drafts. This article has also benefited fromthe comments made by three anonymous referees. Part of this research was
supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).
[1] One type of rule which is incompatible with the model in Fig. 1 would be arule that applied non-cyclically at Stratum 2. Halle & Mohanan (1985) propose
a rule of this kind to account for final [i] in English. Their dialect B is representative of the situation they describe: city, cities and city hall have final [ii],happiness has [i] and happily has [i]. To account for these facts, Halle &Mohanan assume (a) that Class-11 affixation and compounding take place atseparate strata (their strata 2 and 3 respectively); (b) that underlyingly the vowel
is [i] and that a non-cyclic rule of /-tensing applies at stratum 2 except in theenvironment of some affixes like -ly (causing all the above items except happily
to have [i]); (c) that a non-cyclic rule of ('-lengthening applies at Stratum 3(causing all the above items except happiness and happily to have [ii]). The rules
obviously need to be non-cyclic, since they apply to underived words like city.

32

Carlos Gussenhoven
This account runs counter to a number of assumptions implicit in the model inFig. 1 (see also Borowsky 1986: 250ff). In addition to the lexical non-cyclicity
and the splitting up of Stratum 2, their solution makes it necessary to reject
the attractive property of Structure Preservation (Kiparsky 1982), as it creates
three vocalic segments in the lexicon ([ii, i, i]), where only two are needed tounambiguously specify the morphemes of English. The same facts can be accounted for without violating the integrity of Stratum 2, Structure Preservationor the cyclicity of lexical rules, if we assume that ' final [l]' is underlyingly long/ii/. Foot structure rules assign a weak branch to syllables with the long final
vowels /ii/ and /oo/ (as in city and fellow). Adjustment of the final weak /ii/ towhatever quality it has in the dialect concerned ([i] in Yorkshire and conservative RP, [i] in Southern British English, [ii] in most American English) takes
place postlexically. In foot-internal position, as in happily, beautiful, happiness([-nss]), reduction to [i], [i] or schwa takes place, again postlexically, in part
perhaps depending on segmental environment. In foot-final but word-internal
position (as in cityhood, happiness, with [nes]) reduction to [i], but not to schwa,
may take place. (Words like pedigree, Andes and Hermes of course have final
monosyllabic feet; cf. mimicry, Andy's, Hermie's.) This solution, while avoiding
any of the problems of Halle & Mohanan's description, also accounts for thedifferent degrees of reduction that the medial vowel in happiness can undergo as
a function of the quality of the vowel in the final syllable. When -ness forms afoot and the final vowel in happi- is merely word-internal, as opposed to footinternal, reduction to schwa is blocked. Although the phonological effect is different, the situation for happi- is paralleled by that of inte- in interest. If the
final syllable of this word is a foot, the schwa in the preceding (foot-final) syllable is retained, but if the final syllable is reduced to schwa and the preceding
syllable is therefore foot-internal, the foot-internal schwa is deleted.

[2] Liberman & Prince (1977) point out that when the right-hand constituent of acompound branches, it attracts the greatest stress, as in law degree language requirements. This fact is explained if compound formation is constrained so as
not to allow the right-hand constituent to be a compound. Such examples asoffered by Liberman & Prince (1977), then, would be phrasal. Such phrasal
structure will also have to be assumed in many cases in which the right-handconstituent does not branch. For example, Madison Street bus is just like Madison
Street bus station, and kitchen sink has the same phrasal structure as kitchen
towel rack. A solution that relies on a conditioning of the Compound Rule, asoffered in Halle & Vergnaud (1987: 272), is therefore not adopted here.
[3] The ordinal suffix -th must be inflectional (Stratum 3) rather than derivational.
An item like fifteenth does not undergo Initial Accent Deletion, as shown by thefifteenth man. This seems consonant with the idea that ordinal formation is fully
productive, and is not subject to semantic drift.
[4] I assume non-crucially that Stratum-3 prefixes are w's, so that words like unkind
are represented as two separate w's.
[S] A question that requires investigation is when prefinal accents are deleted. In
addition to structures like the film Casablanca, it would appear that contrastively
accented words lose their prefinal accents, as in She doesn't live in Arizona, she
lives in California. In this context, the pronunciations Arizona, California seem
odd.
[6] The view that 'word stress' is abstract is not new, of course. It is held by
Bolinger (1958), Lehiste (1970) and Jassem & Gibbon (1980). Lehiste (1970:
150) says: 'Word-level stress is in a very real sense an abstract quality: a potential for being stressed'. For Bolinger a stressed syllable 'gets the accent IF
the word is important enough to get one' (1964).

The English Rhythm Rule33

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