The Prosodic Component : Lacuna in Transformational Theory.

N. Vanderslice

Expert InsightsPublished 1968

A discussion of the role of the prosodic features of American English in the framework of transformational theory. Although the Chomsky-Halle model dismisses prosodic rhythm as expressive deviation, new evidence indicates that prosody is in fact perfectly regular; moreover, it expounds grammatical referential relationships closely analogous with pronominalization or ellipsis. Accent deletion reveals identifiable structural residue and is especially pertinent. A minimal set of grammatically relevant binary features is shown to satisfactorily account for prosodic patterns: accent, emphasis, cadence, and endglide--plus a feature discriminating strong and weak syllables. Adopting these features, it is claimed, will permit explanation of more supra-sentential phenomena while positing less structure than the Chomsky-Halle stress-cycle theory, which operates beyond the level of the word. 62 pp. Bibliog.

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Vanderslice, N., The Prosodic Component : Lacuna in Transformational Theory. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1968. https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P3874.html.
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