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 leftmo...

It has long been recognized that there is a natural dependence between theories of knowledge representation and theories of knowledge acquisition, with the idea that the right knowledge representation enables acquisition to happen as reliably as it does. Given this, a reasonable criterion for a theory of knowledge representation is that it be useful for acquisition, particularly in non-trivial ...

An algorithm for word stress assignment in German compounds is introduced. First, a metrical tree is automatically derived from adjacent morpheme cohesion scores which are based on co-occurrence statistics. This tree is used to identify the stressed compound part by applying the compound stress rule of metrical phonology. Then the stressed syllable is identified within this compound part by mea...

How is musical memory organized? While classic studies of music perception appealed to schematic or symbolic knowledge structures, recent work suggests that listeners form highly-detailed auditory representations of music. Studies of metrical restoration—memory fill-in of the “beat” of a metrically-ambiguous melody—suggest some organizing dimensions in musical memory. However, many potential di...