Ternary constituents are a consequence of mora sluicing

Ternary stress is a unique challenge to constraint-based metrical stress theories: how to model ternarity without ternary feet (Halle & Vergnaud 1987; Levin 1988; Dresher & Lahiri 1991; Rice 1992) or ternaryspecific constraints that prohibit adjacent feet (Kager 1994; Houghton 2008). While ternary rhythm exists, we propose that ternary feet do not, not even indirectly by means of recursion (pace Martı́nez-Paricio 2012; Kager & Martı́nez-Paricio 2013a,b). We further propose that ternary rhythm arises from mora sluicing (Prince 1985; Hyde 2001), the phenomenon whereby a mora can be excluded from projecting to the ‘syllable’ level to satisfy an instance of the independently-motivated constraint NO-CLASH (pace Elenbaas & Kager 1999). This paper is organized as follows. In §2, our representational assumptions are presented. In §3, we argue for mora sluicing based on evidence from uneven trochee-favoring processes in Mohawk and Central Slovak, and opaque stress-epenthesis interactions in Mohawk. The same rationale lies behind ternary stress systems, analyzed in §4. §5 concludes.