Weight Pattern of Tri-syllabic Words in Persian: Moraic Theory

This paper examines weight patterns in tri-syllabic words within a Moraic-theoretic account. A word weight pattern is weight of syllables and is defined based on distinction between heavy and light syllables (Carr, 2008:172); Here, the notion of mora (symbolized μ) as a basic timing unit provides a distinction between 'light' and 'heavy' syllables. Hayes (1989:356) mentions that heavy syllables have more moras compared to light ones. Also, there are some weight alternations in the syllabic patterns of Persian tri-syllabic words; that is, in an alternative weight pattern, syllables are distributed so that weight is alternately high and low. In order to study and compare weight patterns of simple, derivative and compound words, about 32 thousand tri-syllabic words were collected from Dehkhoda (2003) and Moshiri (2009) dictionaries. Then, they were sorted in an Excel worksheet with all phonological information, including weight of syllables (light, heavy, super-heavy, and ultra-heavy). Also, alternative and non-alternative weight patterns were specified. Results indicate that there happen 49 weight patterns in tri-syllabic words and syllables of one mora (mono-moraic), two moras (bi-moraic), three moras (tri-moraic), and even four moras (tetra-moraic) are probable. However, the sequence of mono-moraic and bi-moraic syllables is the most frequent and tri-moraic and tetra-moraic syllables, especially adjacent ones, are less frequent. This indicates that tri-syllabic words tend towards short syllables. Moreover, the non-alternative quasi-monotonic weight patterns are the most frequent ones. Likewise, simple words ideally tend to sequences of mono-moraic and bi-moraic syllables and tetra-moraic ones are loanwords; the derivatives are heavier than the simple and lighter than the compounds.