Brett Hyde

Brett Hyde

Associate Professor of Philosophy, Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology, and Linguistics
PhD, Rutgers University
research interests:
  • Linguistics
  • Phonology
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    • Washington University
      CB 1073
      One Brookings Drive
      St. Louis, MO 63130-4899
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    Professor Brett Hyde is a linguist whose primary interests are in phonology generally and metrical stress theory in particular.

    Topics of recent projects include the typology of weight-insensitive binary stress patterns, the role of NonFinality constraints in producing weight-sensitivity, problematic phenomena in Banawá prosody, and measures of syllable weight in unbounded stress systems. Hyde is also interested in Optimality Theory as a model of linguistic competence and performance. One of his current projects is to explore some of the possible Optimality Theoretic accounts of language variation within individual speakers.

    Layering and Directionality

    Layering and Directionality

    By Brett Hyde

    The metrical grid, the prosodic hierarchy, and the devices that establish directional parsing effects are closely intertwined in metrical stress theory. The metrical grid is the structure that represents stress patterns. The locations of stressed positions on the grid are constrained by the positions of categories in the prosodic hierarchy. Both the metrical grid and the prosodic hierarchy are manipulated by constraints, such as alignment constraints, that establish directional orientations within these structures. Assumptions about the representations affect the behavior of the constraints, and the particular formulation of the constraints influences the ultimate configuration of the representations. 

    Layering and Directionality is unique in the OT literature in that it examines both halves of the equation. It addresses the formulation of constraints that produce directional parsing effects, but it also addresses assumptions concerning prosodic and metrical structure. The book presents and defends three central proposals: the Weak Bracketing approach to layering relationships between prosodic categories, the Optimal Mapping approach to the relationship between prosodic categories and the metrical grid, and the Relation-Specific Alignment approach to parsing directionality. The book is also unique in its coverage of OT accounts, comparing the proposed approach to approaches that range from Generalized Alignment in standard OT to the more recent Iterative Foot Optimization couched within the framework of Harmonic Serialism. The book draws extensively on the typological literature to evaluate the predictions of the accounts examined.