Spanish Secondary Stress without Gradient Alignment

Recent theories of metrical structure in Optimality Theory differ starkly in whether feet can be aligned gradiently (McCarthy and Prince 1993, Gordon 2002, Hyde 2002) or only categorically (Kager 2001, 2005, McCarthy 2003, Buckley 2009). Particularly challenging for certain categorical theories are apparent cases of the initial-dactyl effect, where all feet align rightward except for the leftmost, combined with End Rule Right, such that the main stress does not participate in the left-edge effect. Hyde and McCord (2012) argue that Spanish, which has such a pattern, requires gradient directional alignment; I show that a more complete account of Spanish stress makes such gradience unnecessary. Spanish secondary stress actually has two patterns (Harris 1983, Roca 1986): a more colloquial pronunciation that can include an initial dactyl, and a more “rhetorical” with right alignment; so we must first account for variation. In addition, the initial dactyl is found across a phrase (Navarro Tomás 1977, Roca 1986); so we must also account for phrasal interactions. I argue that the formal, right-aligned pattern is created lexically, but phrasally a new trochaic foot is potentially left-aligned with a prosodic phrase. In colloquial style, the left-aligned foot overrides faithfulness to lexical foot structure; but in rhetorical style, faithfulness wins. Any theory of phonology requires some account of the difference between lexical and phrasal patterns. Under the analysis proposed here, which takes advantage of the two components, the metrical system itself remains more restricted, without resorting to the computational and formal complexity of gradient alignment.