Speaker judgments alone cannot diagnose syllable structure
(2024) In Theoretical Linguistics 50(3-4). p.149-191- Abstract
The ease and consistency with which speakers of many languages provide direct judgments about syllable structure has been taken by scholars as evidence that these judgments are accurate and sufficient argumentation for an analysis of syllable structure in descriptive works. This paper questions whether the results of direct elicitation tasks reliably indicate a prosodic domain that is meaningful in the language's phonology and provides alternative forms of evidence for syllable structure from intonation. This is done through a case study of Budai Rukai, a Formosan language whose contact relationship with Sinitic languages affects how speakers respond to syllable judgment tasks.
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/ab2dea39-f78c-40b3-a414-751e0af327fd
- author
- MacAulay, Benjamin LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2024-10
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Austronesian, intonation, language documentation, metalinguistic awareness, syllable structure
- in
- Theoretical Linguistics
- volume
- 50
- issue
- 3-4
- pages
- 43 pages
- publisher
- De Gruyter
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85201191192
- ISSN
- 0301-4428
- DOI
- 10.1515/tl-2024-2013
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- ab2dea39-f78c-40b3-a414-751e0af327fd
- date added to LUP
- 2025-01-07 13:16:31
- date last changed
- 2025-04-04 14:45:48
@article{ab2dea39-f78c-40b3-a414-751e0af327fd,
abstract = {{<p>The ease and consistency with which speakers of many languages provide direct judgments about syllable structure has been taken by scholars as evidence that these judgments are accurate and sufficient argumentation for an analysis of syllable structure in descriptive works. This paper questions whether the results of direct elicitation tasks reliably indicate a prosodic domain that is meaningful in the language's phonology and provides alternative forms of evidence for syllable structure from intonation. This is done through a case study of Budai Rukai, a Formosan language whose contact relationship with Sinitic languages affects how speakers respond to syllable judgment tasks.</p>}},
author = {{MacAulay, Benjamin}},
issn = {{0301-4428}},
keywords = {{Austronesian; intonation; language documentation; metalinguistic awareness; syllable structure}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{3-4}},
pages = {{149--191}},
publisher = {{De Gruyter}},
series = {{Theoretical Linguistics}},
title = {{Speaker judgments alone cannot diagnose syllable structure}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2013}},
doi = {{10.1515/tl-2024-2013}},
volume = {{50}},
year = {{2024}},
}