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Variation within and across Romance Languages: Selected papers from the 41st Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Ottawa, 5–7 May 2011
Edited by Marie-Hélène Côté and Eric Mathieu
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 333] 2014
► pp. 101–118

Schwa at the phonology/syntax interface

| Northern Illinois University

It is claimed in this paper that the well known incongruence between the phonology and the syntax is resolved by removing syntactic boundaries by means of the rhythmic patterning. Resulting from this is a direct interface between the phonological phrasing and the syntax. The intermediary of the prosodic component is thereby eliminated. Accordingly, it is emphasized that language is rhythmic and that the rhythm of any given language directly interprets the syntactic constituency. The instrument by which this is achieved is the rhythmic foot, which contravenes the syntactic constituency directly and restructures it to align it with the rhythmic patterning. In contrast to Nespor (1990), therefore, this approach takes into account no separation between the prosody and rhythm. As a result, it limits the need for pre-compiled rules as proposed by Hayes (1990). Especially targeted in relation to this discussion is the behavior of French schwa.

Published online: 17 December 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.333.08maz
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