Abstract:

Given a rhythmic sound stimulus, the hearer automatically parses it into recurrent units. Researchers since Woodrow [Arch. Psych. 14, 1--66 (1909)] have consistently found that stimulus elements differing in duration are parsed iambically, while those differing in intensity are parsed trochaically. In an extensive typological survey, Hayes [Metrical Stress Theory (1995)] observes that no language has quantity-insensitive iambic feet, and suggests that the nonlinguistic parsing tendencies may be at the root of this language universal (the ``iambic-trochaic law''). However, the relevant nonlinguistic parsing experiments were done with native English speakers. We compared parsing behavior in native speakers of English and in two dialects of Japanese. Our findings suggest that native language (specifically, the structure of the minimal intonational phrase) determines parsing preference, not the other way around. The lack of quantity-insensitive iambs must have another source.