Accentedness, Unaccentedness, and Phrasal Accent in Mallabia and Ondarroa Basque

Abstract

Bizkaian dialects of Basque are tonal, and feature contrasts between morphemes that are underlyingly specified for tone and underlyingly toneless. In Ondarroa, these toneless “unaccented” words surface with an accent at the end of a phrase. Current analysis of Ondarroa Basque is mostly diachronic, and this thesis defends and revises Arregi’s (2002) synchronic and derivational account, using metrical grid theory. The are few writings on Mallabia Basque. This thesis provides a synchronic and metrical analysis of the lexical and postlexical derivation of tone, and demonstrates that Mallabia does not have two lexical accents, but a contrast between accented and unaccented words. Both dialects are shown to produce unexpected forms when accent targets a syllable with a nucleus in hiatus. Brief commentary is given on the two dialects compare typologically to one another and to other dialects of Basque. Ondarroa does not fit perfectly into any typological category, and is defined as its own subtype, while Mallabia shares many features with Central and Gipuzkoan dialects. Remarks on the superfluousness of “pitch accent” as a typological category are given as it relates to the nature of unaccentedness and these two dialects.