| Popis: |
In many languages, sounds in certain "privileged" positions preserve marked structure which is eliminated elsewhere (Positional Faithfulness, Beckman 1998). This paper presents new corpus and experimental evidence that faithfulness to main-stress location and segmental content of morpho-semantic heads emerges in English blends. The study compared right-headed (subordinating) blends, like motor + hotel -> motel (a kind of hotel) with coordinating blends like spoon + fork -> spork (equally spoon and fork).Stress: Analysis of 1095 blends from Thurner (1993) found that right-headed blends were more faithful to stress location of the second source word than were coordinating blends. Given source words with conflicting stress (e.g., FLOUNder + sarDINE), participants preferentially matched the blend that preserved second-word stress (flounDINE) to a right-headed definition.Segmental content: When source-word length was controlled, segments from right-headed blends were more likely to survive than those from coordinating blends. Given source words that could be spliced at two points (e.g., flaMiNGo + MoNGoose), participants preferentially matched the one that preserved more of the second word (flamongoose) to a right-headed definition.These results support the hypotheses that Positional Faithfulness constraints are universally available, that heads are a privileged position, and that blend phonology is sensitive to headedness. |
