Abstract
This paper gives a finite-state formulation of two closely related descriptions of Finnish prosody proposed by Paul Kiparsky and Nine Elenbaas in the framework of optimality theory. In native Fin- nish words, the primary stress falls on the first syllable. Secondary stress generally falls on every second syllable. However, secondary stress skips a light syllable that is followed by a heavy syllable. Kiparsky and Elenbaas attempt to show that the ternary pattern arises from the interaction of universal metrical constraints.
This paper formalizes the Kiparsky and Elenbaas analyses using the parc/xrce regular expression calculus. It shows how output forms with syllabification, stress and metrical feet are constructed from unmarked input forms. The optimality constraints proposed by Kiparsky and Elenbaas are reformulated in finite-state terms using lenient composition. The formalization shows that both analyses fail for many types of words.
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Karttunen, L. (2006). A Finite-State Approximation of Optimality Theory: The Case of Finnish Prosody. In: Salakoski, T., Ginter, F., Pyysalo, S., Pahikkala, T. (eds) Advances in Natural Language Processing. FinTAL 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4139. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11816508_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11816508_3
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