An Analysis of Stress in Western Shoshone

Preston Smith—Brigham Young University—Dr. Dirk Elzinga

        The Western Shoshone data present a simple trochaic stress pattern that can be explained by a few simple examples.        

        Primary stress in Western Shoshone is always (without exception and independent of weight) assigned to the first (left-most) syllable. W. Shoshone then generally assigns secondary stress foot-initially from left to right; the final syllable cannot be stressed if the penultimate syllable is a heavy foot-final syllable.  As we will see, however, this generalization about secondary stress distinguishes between heavy syllables with a coda consonant (it does not treat them as heavy) and heavy syllables with a long vowel (it does treat them as heavy).

Data set A shows us that foot-type in W. Shoshone is trochaic.  Because W. Shoshone assigns stress from left to right, this means that word-final syllables can occasionally fall outside a foot.  The second example (‘awesome one’) from set A shows this:

Table A

As we can see here, the syllable [.di] falls after an unstressed syllable, but that syllable closes out the foot, so [.di] is left out, which is not a problem for our analysis, but rather it is explained in this way.  This could be represented by curly braces {σμ}.   This feet in this word can be shown thus:

Table B

        Data set B presents a new problem—or, better said, new information.  When we look at the feet in set B, we see that W. Shoshone differentiates between two types of heavy syllables: (1) heavy syllables with coda consonants, shown below from set A:        

Table C

and (2) heavy syllables with long vowels; in fact, these data sets show that W. Shoshone treats the first type (1) of heavy syllables as light syllables, and only long vowels carry count as heavy syllables.  Long vowels are always in their own foot, so we could even say that feet are divided not by syllables, but by weight. If a syllable has a weight σμμ, we can say it has a weight of 2; if it has a weight σμ, we can say it has a weight of 1.  All feet normally try to attain an optimal weight of 2.  This analysis of Western Shoshone also prevents superheavy syllables (such as in the word ‘níːttìmaxàndi’ from forming, which could make forming feet much more complex.   Thus you can read the tables above with every syllable having only a weight of 1.  Below we see examples from set B with this new way of weighing syllables which also show that long vowels are always in their own foot:

Table D

Note that the heavy syllables are “proprietors” of their own foot, and the final syllable of óː.sàːn.dò.ʔip.pi̥ is not inside a foot, so it does not carry secondary stress.

Lastly, set C shows us one more feature of stress in W. Shoshone: light syllables can also be proprietors of their own foot if and only if they precede a heavy syllable as defined by Western Shoshone (i.e. a long vowel syllable).  Normally the feet would form with a total weight of 2, however, this is not possible in many examples because it is not possible to split a heavy syllable (long vowel) down the middle, therefore, the footing requires only a weight of 1 in those instances.  Examples provided below:

Table E

To briefly sum up the conclusions at which I have arrived: the four main attributes we look for when analyzing stress ((1) direction of stress assignment, (2) which mora/syllable in the foot receives stress, (3) where primary stress falls, and (4) syllable/foot weight) are characterized in Western Shoshone by stress assignment beginning with (3) primary stress on the (1) first leftmost mora (no exceptions) and moving right on the (2) first mora of every foot [trochaic footing]. (4) This is true even if a foot has only one mora, although feet ideally have two moras.  Word-final syllables can fall outside a foot.  W. Shoshone does not consider syllables with coda consonants to be heavy syllables, but it does consider syllables with long vowels to be heavy.  Because stress is assigned via mora, not syllable only, long vowels are always in their own foot and always carry stress; and because syllables cannot be split, light syllables that precede heavy syllables have their own foot and carry stress.