Metrical pattern in Noakhali Bangla: An OT account

Abstract

Noakhali Bangla (NKB), an eastern dialect of Bangla spoken in Tripura (India) and Bangladesh, has prosodic properties as listed below: a) every content word is a prosodic word; b) binary trochees are constructed from left-to-right; c) strict iterative footing is not allowed; d) rhythm is ternary: every third syllable, after the initial prominence, is assigned stress; e) in three and six syllable words the rightmost syllable remains unfooted; f) in four syllable words the two right most syllables remain unfooted; g) in five syllable words a second foot is constructed aligned with the right edge of the word; h) primary stress is mandatorily assigned to the left most syllable; i) maximum size of a word with light (CV) syllables is of six syllables; and with CVC the size is four syllables; j) there is no quantity distinction among syllables: CV, CVC, CVV, CVVC are all Light’ Within the dispensation of Optimality Theory, the entire story of the NKB metrics can be captured in terms of the following . For CV sequences the projected constraint hierarchy is: GrWd=PrWd, FT-BIN, *[σV, TROCHEE, ALIGN-L, *FTFT >> PARSE-σ >> ALL-FT-L, DEP-µ-IO . For sequences of containing CVC, CVV, CVVC with or without CV the grammar is: GrWd=PrWd, FT-BIN, *[σV, NUCLEUS, TROCHEE, ALIGN-L, *FTFT >> PARSE-σ >> ALL-FT-L, DEP-µ-IO >> *C]σ Ternary rhythm is a marked phenomenon in prosody across the world. Invocation of *Lapse (in its varied incarnations) is well known in literature, though well challenged as well. Keeping the controversy at bay, the study offers a straight forward account of the phenomenon with binary trochees dispersed by one upbeat, even as rhythmicity is not forfeited. Appropriate ranking of universal constraints does the miracle.