Prosodic Weight *

Prosodic Weight* Draga Zec Cornell University Introduction Syllable weight has been standardly characterized in terms of subsyllabic constituency, and computed by making reference to mora count, as argued in Hyman 1984, McCarthy and Prince 1986 and Hayes 1989, among others.1 Certain recent proposals, however, posit additional syllable weight distinctions, based on the sonority of the nucleus (e.g., Hayes 1995, Gordon 1999). While continuing to maintain that syllable weight in terms of mora count is the sole weight mechanism associated with the syllable as a prosodic constituent, I will argue that cases of weight distinctions based on the sonority of the nucleus fall under an entirely different rubric. My central claim is that such cases crucially reflect how the syllable relates to the other members of the prosodic hierarchy, notably the foot, bringing into relief the role of sonority in characterizing this relation. We will begin with the relevant properties of the prosodic hierarchy, given in (1) (see Nespor and Vogel 1986, McCarthy and Prince 1986 among others). 1. ω prosodic word φ foot σ syllable μ mora