Poesia bastida amb materials planers: Optimització del ritme en els alexandrins d'Estellés

Summary: Metrical phonology deals with rhythmic patterns in natural languages and also with the stress grid in poetry. According to the basic hypothesis of the optimal model we follow (v. Golston, 1998, among others), verse exemplars that meet the requirements of a set of metrical constraints are preferred and, therefore, are predicted to be more frequent. To test this hypothesis, we analyze the alexandrines from Estellés’ Llibre de meravelles and show that his metric preferences are grounded on general rhythmic constraints whose satisfaction can explain the frequency differences of the attested verse lines. In particular, we find constraints promoting more eurythmic lines and constraints which, on the contrary, seem to favor rhythmically worse patterns allowing, though, a larger portion of the vocabulary to fit in the line. Keywords: Alexandrine, metrical constraints, poetic meter, rhythm, stress, Estellés