Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
In Roca (1988) I take to task Harris (1983) and Den Os & Kager (1986) and propose a novel approach to Spanish (nonverbal) word stress according to which (i) the algorithm is not quantity sensitive and thus differs from that of Latin, the parent language, (ii) the system does not obey the Uniformity of Algorithm Principle, (iii) the algorithm operates on the morphological stem, rather than on the whole word. As regards (i), I made the suggestion (418, ibid.) that the preferred paroxytone stress in native forms with penultimate closed syllables must be formalized as a lexical prohibition on extra-metricality markings in the given environments. Clearly, the formalization of this proposal and the exploration of its consequences are central to the analysis. Moreover, while the arguments for a relaxation of the Uniformity of Algorithm Principle still stand, departures from the principle are doubtless costly and therefore best avoided. Finally, in Roca (1988) there is no discussion of the consequences of (iii) above for the cyclic data presented in Harris (1983), the compatibility of which with (iii) is consequently unclear. All these facts warrant a re-examination of the issue, which I propose to carry out in the present paper.