Universal #1039
Legacy number: 1039
| Number | 1035 |
| Original | When stress is phonologically predictable and limited to certain syllables (i.e., does not always fall on the same syllable), the potentially stressable syllables form a sequence without gaps and are reckoned either initially forward or from the ultima backwards, with the relevant syllables being identified in terms of only three properties: (i) heaviness (vowel length and/or a complex nucleus of unlike vowels (diphthong) and/or syllable-final consonant(s), as opposed to lightness, (ii) open or peripheral vowel quality, as opposed to central vowel, or (iii) high tone, as opposed to low tone. |
| Standardized | When stress is phonologically predictable and limited to certain syllables (i.e., does not always fall on the same syllable), the potentially stressable syllables form a sequence without gaps and are reckoned either initially forward or from the ultima backwards, with the relevant syllables being identified in terms of only three properties: (i) heaviness (vowel length and/or a complex nucleus of unlike vowels (diphthong) and/or syllable-final consonant(s), as opposed to lightness, (ii) open or peripheral vowel quality, as opposed to central vowel, or (iii) high tone, as opposed to low tone. |
| Keywords | stress, syllable, accent, tone, weight, vowel quality |
| Domain | prosodic phonology |
| Type | unconditional |
| Status | achronic |
| Quality | absolute |
| Basis | sample of almost 200 languages in Greenberg & Kaschube 1976 |
| Source | Greenberg & Kaschube 1976: 7 |
Discussion
Counterexamples
Notes
1. Accent = phonetic features occurring just once or at most once in the phonological word, with cumulative or demarcative function (Greenberg & Kaschube 1976).2. Impossible would be, e.g., stress falling on the first or third syllable but not the second.
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2. Impossible would be, e.g., stress falling on the first or third syllable but not the second.