Word minimality, weight and sensitivity to onsets in French hypocoristics
Résumé
One of the main aspects of the hypocoristic formations that has attracted the attention of phonologists relates to the truncation processes they undergo. Proponents of the prosodic hypothesis (McCarthy & Prince 1986 et seq., Nespor & Vogel 1986, Selkirk 1981) argue that these processes obeys a minimality condition, which is defined in terms of the authentic units of prosody (μ, σ, Ft, ω): A well-formed prosodic word must contain at least one binary foot at the moraic or syllabic level, depending on the language (see among others Mester 1990 on Japanese, Plenat 1982, 1999 and Nelson 1998 on French, Colina 1996, Piñeros 2000, Plénat 2003 and Torres-Tamarit 2021 on Spanish). This presentation combines the strict CV approach to syllable structure (Lowenstamm 1996) with the Word Minimality hypothesis. It argues that the shape of the truncated forms in French can be analyzed without appeal to any prosodic hierarchy: no moras, no syllables, no feet. The forms use two CV units, which correspond to the minimal domain where Proper Government holds, hence the Minimal Word.
Domaines
Linguistique
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