Join us for a colloquium presented by Kristine Yu (University of Massachusetts Amhearst) in NQ2435 on Friday, October 2, 2026, from 4-5:30 PM!

Title: The shifting motivation for prosodic constituents

Abstract: The motivation for introducing prosodic constituents into phonological grammar was originally that doing so recognizes generalizations about the otherwise coincidental distribution of disparate phonological patterns. In a systematic literature review bringing together work from intonational phonology, prosodic phonology, and the morphosyntax-phonology interface, we show that the way linguists think about prosodic constituents has in fact drifted away from their original conception. In fact, converging phonological patterns play a minimal role in motivating prosodic domains. We then consider how far phonetic perspectives on allophony might bring us back to the original conception of prosodic constituents.

[Joint work with Charlotte Kaiser, Seung Suk Lee, and Alessa Farinella]