Changes in word shapes in Mainland Southeast Asia are usually attributed to contact-induced typological convergence. However, little attention has been paid to the role of structural constraints in defining paths of change. In this paper, we describe two distributional gaps in paths of word shape shifts: (1) there are no attested cases of direct shift between trochaic and iambic rhythm and (2) monosyllabization does not occur in trochaic languages. We argue that universal phonetic tendencies and structural constraints on their phonologization that derive from the Iambic-Trochaic Law are sufficient to explain these gaps and seem to account for at least part of the typological convergence usually attributed to contact.
DiCanio, Christian, Joshua Benn & Rey Castillo García
2018. The phonetics of information structure in Yoloxóchitl Mixtec. Journal of Phonetics 68 ► pp. 50 ff.
Enfield, N. J.
2018. Mainland Southeast Asian Languages,
Salmons, Joseph & Huibin Zhuang
2018. The diachrony of East Asian prosodic templates. Linguistics 56:3 ► pp. 549 ff.
Jiang, Di
2017. 漢語詞形韻律結構的變化與上古君王人名長度的演進. International Journal of Chinese Linguistics 4:2 ► pp. 308 ff.
Kirby, James & Marc Brunelle
2017. Southeast Asian Tone in Areal Perspective. In The Cambridge Handbook of Areal Linguistics, ► pp. 703 ff.
Jiang, Di, Caijun Kang & Haixiong Yan
2014. Evolution of word-syllable structures and the diversity of world languages. Chinese Science Bulletin 59:26 ► pp. 3362 ff.
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