11 Brackets and Grid Marks , or Theories of Primary Accent andRhythm

In this chapter, I present the outlines of a formal theory of word accent.1 The theory is nonmetrical in that the account of primary accent location is not based on iterative foot structure. The theory separates the representations of primary and rhythmic accents, the idea being that the latter are accounted for ‘‘with reference to’’ the primary accent location. This means that rhythmic structure is either assigned later (in a derivational sense) or governed by constraints that are subordinate to the constraints that govern primary accent (as is possible in the approach presented in Prince and Smolensky 2004). This approach has been called a ‘‘primary-accent-first theory’’ (see van der Hulst 1984, 1990, 1992, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000a, 2002, in preparation, van der Hulst and Lahiri 1988, van der Hulst and Kooij 1994 for earlier statements). The theory (presented in sections 11.2 through 11.6) is o¤ered here as an alternative to the approach in Idsardi 1992, this volume. However, it was not developed as an alternative to this theory. Rather, like Idsardi’s theory, it was developed as an alternative to standard metrical phonology (Liberman and Prince 1977, Vergnaud and Halle 1978, Hayes 1980, Halle and Vergnaud 1987). In section 11.7, I will point to some parallels and di¤erences between Idsardi’s theory and the one presented here.