Recursive Prosody and the Prosodic Form of Compounds

This paper investigates the role recursive structures play in prosody. In current understanding, phonological phrasing is computed by a general syntax–prosody mapping algorithm. Here, we are interested in recursive structure that arises in response to morphosyntactic structure that needs to be mapped. We investigate the types of recursive structures found in prosody, specifically: For a prosodic category κ, besides the adjunctive type of recursion _κ[κ x], _κ[x κ], is there also the coordinative type _κ[κ κ]? Focusing on the prosodic forms of compounds in two typologically rather different languages, Danish and Japanese, we encounter three types of recursive word structures: coordinative _ω[ω ω], left-adjunctive _ω[f ω], right-adjunctive _ω[ω f] and the strictly layered compound structure _ω[f f]. In addition, two kinds of coordinative φ-compounds are found in Japanese, one with a non-recursive (strictly layered) structure _φ[ω ω], a mono-phrasal compound consisting of two words, and one with coordinative recursion _φ[φ φ], a bi-phrasal compound. A cross-linguistically rare type of post-syntactic compound has this biphrasal structure, a fact to be explained by its sentential origin.