It has long been observed that not all languages fit neatly into a ‘stress’ vs. ‘tone’ dichotomy. Recent research has concentrated on how to account formally for ‘hybrid’ prominence systems which have been argued to exhibit both metrical and tonal properties.

In many languages the issue arises as to whether an onglide patters as part of the syllable onset or forms the first part of a (rising) diphthong with the immediately following vowel. If it is part of the syllable onset, the structure of a CGV syllable would be as in (1), but if it forms the first part of a diphthong the structure of a CGV syllable could either be as in (2a) with a monomoraic diphthong (where the glide is ‘co-moraic’ with the following vowel) or as in (2b) with a bimoraic diphthong (C = consonant, G = glide, V = vowel, μ = mora, and σ = syllable).

This paper demonstrates the role of word-internal domains in the complex verbal tonology of Kinande, a Bantu language spoken in Zaire. As Hyman (1990) details, Kinande displays sensitivity to the phrase-level prosodic domains by placing boundary tones at the right edges of Phonological Phrases and Intonational Phrases. Under the analysis proposed here, the word-internal domains may also be delimited by boundary tones. These domains are normally referred to as the Stem, Macrostem and Infl domains.

In early autosegmental studies certain segments were specially marked with a ‘star’ diacritic. These starred segments had a priority association; only in a later stage of the derivation were other segments associated. Starred associations were resistant to modification by subsequent rules: ‘the point is to preserve the prominence of the star’ (Goldsmith 1979: 129). An associated tone had as its phonetic exponent a high or low pitch occurring approximately at the same time as the associated item(s) on the phoneme tier, usually a vowel.

What influence do syntax and phonology have on one another ? Two types of answer to this question appear in the literature. The consensus view is probably best expressed by Zwicky & Pullum (1986) (see also Myers 1987; Vogel & Kenesei 1990), who claim that the relation is one-way: although phonological phrasing above the word is affected by syntactic structure, syntax itself is phonology-free.

In this paper we reexamine the prosodic system of Yidiji (Australian; Dixon 1977a, b; 1991) as a case supporting an approach to stress assignment in which the construction of bounded feet and the implementation of metrical heads within them occur as separate events (the SEPARABILITY hypothesis; Halle & Vergnaud 1987a,b (= H&V)). Specifically, we argue that a layer of feet assigned early in Yidiji phonological derivations is unheaded and insensitive to weight distinctions, and plays a role in allomorphy. Metrical heads are later assigned to these constituents by independent rules operating under quantity-sensitive principles. In other words, Yidiji employs an additive metrical system in which stressable heads are overlaid on existing foot structures (prosodic overlay). It is the interaction between the outputs of these operations which produces the flexible rhythmic structure for which Yidiji is known. This flexibility is exemplified by the forms in (la) and (lb) (from Dixon 1977a: 40–41), where stress falls on even-numbered and odd-numbered syllables respectively, counted from the left.

An interesting feature of many Bantu languages is the presence of what have been called ‘prenasalised consonants’-these are typically sounds that might be interpreted as a sequence of nasal + stop, but which behave in many respects like single segments:

The phonetic gesture of stop consonant aspiration, which is predictable in a Germanic language such as English, has been described traditionally as ranging from a ‘puff of air’ upon release of closure (Heffner 1950) to the segmental occurrence of a following voiceless glottal approximant /h/ (Trager & Smith 1951). Within the generative phonology paradigm, however, aspiration has been construed as a featural property rather than as an independent segment of its own, often casually identified simply as [+aspiration], or, following Chomsky & Halle (1968), as a positive specification resulting from ‘heightened subglottal pressure’. We take this kind of view here as well, employing a notation with superscript h ([Ch]) to indicate representations in which aspiration is encoded as an integral feature of the segment with which it is associated, while we explore the phonological realisation of aspiration in Germanic as the reflex manifestation of a spread or open glottis, an idea first advanced in the seminal work of Kim (1970), and since developed in Anderson & Ewen's treatment of ‘|O| languages’ (1987: 195–199)

One of the crucial ways in which prosodic structure governs the distribution of segments is in terms of sonority. By taking into account what is known′ as the sonority of segments, their arrangement within the syllable follows a clear pattern: the most sonorous segment occupies the peak position, while the less sonorous ones occur towards the margins, as observed in a wide range of literature (Jespersen 1904; Saussure 1916; Zwicky 1972; Hooper 1976; Kiparsky 1979, 1981; Lowenstamm 1981; Steriade 1982; Selkirk 1984; Clements 1990). This specific arrangement of segments within the syllable has been attributed in the previous literature to the principle of sonority sequencing, which relegates segments low in sonority towards syllable margins (see Hooper 1976; Kiparsky 1979, 1981; Steriade 1982; Selkirk 1984; Levin 1985; Clements 1990).

In current phonological feature theories, the behaviour of glottals poses serious problems for their representation. The special status of / h / and /? / which are often transparent to vowel harmony processes (cf. Steriade 1987; McCarthy 1991, forthcoming; Stemberger 1993), has led to the hypothesis that, at least in some languages, they lack a place node. The representation of ejectives and implosives, though, is very rarely discussed in the literature. On phonetic grounds, the main difference between plain stops and ejectives and implosives is the airstream mechanism used during their realisation, the former having a pulmonic egressive airstream while the latter involve a supplementary glottal constriction, which may accompany either egressive airflow, as in ejectives, or ingressive, as in implosives.

The underlying system of consonants and vowels in Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth BP), together with the lexical and word-level phonological rules and the interactions between them, has been studied in great detail (see e.g. Harris 1974; Lopez 1979; Redenbarger 1981; Quicoli 1990). The detailed knowledge we possess in this area of BP phonology makes the language an excellent test case for evaluating theoretical innovations, especially since genuine descriptive and explanatory progress can only be achieved by virtue of improved theoretical models. The discussion in this paper will focus on the rules of Vowel Harmony (henceforth VH), Truncation, Neutralisation and Vowel Lowering in verbs (henceforth VL), for which a non-linear analysis will be proposed. One of the purposes of this paper is to show that a treatment of the BP vowel alternations in non-linear terms yields an elegant and explanatory description of a substantial part of the BP phonological component. Another goal is to present the theoretically relevant aspects of the BP facts. It will be argued that aperture distinctions in BP are advantageously represented by a single phonetic parameter, which will not only dispense with the features [high] and [low], but also with [ATR] or [tense], which have been frequently used to distinguish the two series of BP mid vowels. Also, further evidence will be provided in favour of the hypothesis advanced by a number of phonologists (see Clements 1991a; Odden 1991) that aperture features should be represented as constituents in the vocalic feature tree.