Word internal constituency in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish Salish)
Academic Work
In this paper we examine the stress patterns of Squamish words and we argue that they provide evidence for word internal constituency. In particular, we propose that stress is assigned within the Prosodic Stem constituent. We argue that non-reduplicative prefixes are outside the domain for stress assignment, so they do not receive stress. Reduplicative prefixes, in contrast, are in the Prosodic Stem with the root, so they do receive stress when the basic pattern predicts they should. We also show that weak suffixes are in the Prosodic Stem with the root since the basic pattern is observed when weak suffixes are attached to roots. Evidence from stress also shows us that strong suffixes begin a new domain for stress assignment since adjacent stresses are permitted when they are attached to roots with final stress. In analysing these facts we use Optimality Theory which is a constraint-based model. Within Optimality Theory we show that all these facts can be accounted for with the constraints and rankings which account for the basic pattern.
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