On 2006-05-03 14:52, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> Have I understood this right, and if so why is a sequnence
> of two light syllables counted as heavy, but a sequence of
> one heavy and one light syllable not counted as super heavy?
> I guess it has to do with rythm somehow. I suppose the
> stress (PIE or Germanic?) must fall on the first of the two
> light syllables.
It does have to do with early Germanic rhythm, which depended on the
binary grouping of of moras from left to right into rhythmic units known
as "moraic trochees". One clear trace of that is the assignment of
rhythmic stress in OE (relevant for the poetic metre of the language): a
non-final syllable can be stressed if it is two moras away from the
preceding stress. E.g. in <æþelingas> the vowel of <-ing-> counts as
stressed because it follows a sequence of ['LL] (two light syllables,
the first of them stressed), but in <cyningas> it can't be stressed,
since the immediately preceding syllable is light and stressed. ['H] (a
stressed heavy syllable) is bimoraic and therefore rhythmically
equivalent to ['LL], which means that the next syllable after a heavy
initial is stressable (if non-final). E.g. the preterites <maþelode> and
<wundode> are footed, respectively, as ['LL]['LL] and ['H]['LL] (in both
cases the suffixal /o/ is stressable), but <lufode> is ['LL]L, without a
subsidiary stress.
Piotr