Metrical Prominence Asymmetries in MedɄmba, A Grassfields Bantu Language

There has been considerable debate as to whether word-level metrical prominence asymmetries are a universal feature of languages. African tone languages have been at the heart of this debate, as many of these languages do not show clear phonetic evidence of lexical stress. This article explores metrical prominence asymmetries in Medʉmba, a Grassfields Bantu language, by examining such asymmetries through the lens of speech timing. Forged within a dynamical model of metrical structure, a metronome-based phrase-repetition task known as SPEECH CYCLING is used to investigate the relative timing of syllables hypothesized to be metrically prominent and metrically weak. Previous research using the task has shown that metrically prominent syllables are attracted to certain relative positions within a repetition cycle. Results of two experiments show that foot heads in Medʉmba also show this behavior, supporting their status as metrically prominent. These results suggest that true metrical prominence asymmetries exist in a broader range of languages than previously thought, and that relative timing serves as an important unifying property of metrical structure crosslinguistically.