Why is English foot generally regarded as left-dominant foot?

Question

I'm now thinking about the foot in English. This is an unit of rhythm.

And I think that the English foot is seen as left-dominant, which is always started with a strong syllable. But I don't know the reason.

What do you think the reason is?

It is? The sonnet is one of the most widely used traditional forms in English poetry, and it's not left-footed: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" How about rock songs? Not one of the most famous ones: "There's a lady who's sure / All that glitters is gold / And she's buying a stairway to heaven". *Sometimes* the foot starts with a strong syllable. Sometimes not. — Peter Shor, Nov 01 '16 at 23:52
I have heard of pussyfoot, crowsfoot, clubfoot, barefoot, and athlete's foot, but never of English foot! — WS2, Nov 02 '16 at 00:03
I think that the most dominant two-beat foot in English is the iamb, i.e. right-footed. This might be because our subject noun phrases typically start with an article like "a" and "the", leaving the head noun (often monosyllabic) to get the first stress: "a DOG," "the MAN," "this PAPer", "these PAGes". Consider also that many sentences have pronoun+verb form and are also overwhelmingly iambic: "I NEED...", "You LOVE...", "She WANTS..." — DyingIsFun, Nov 02 '16 at 00:11
In marching and dancing, the man is supposed to begin with his LEFT foot ... left,right,left,right ... If a woman is the man's partner in the dance, she may sometimes do it in reverse, starting with the right. — GEdgar, Nov 02 '16 at 00:28
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it belongs on [linguistics.se]. — curiousdannii, Nov 04 '16 at 13:56

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 02 '16 at 01:59

It's important to realize that trying to look at this poetically is getting off on the wrong foot.

The claim is based on single words, not whole lines of poetry:

English is a left-dominant language. For example, "consultation" has two feet, /kɔn.səl/ and /tæɪ.ʃən/. In each of these feet, the first or left-most syllable is strong and the second is weak, that is, left-dominant.

...

In English there is a tendency for the first syllable of words to be strong and for words not to have adjacent strong syllables. For example, words like "lantern" (s w) and "halogen" (s w w) are far more common than "arise" (w s) or "apex" (s s).

_{The Foot and Word Stress}

Monosyllabic words are neither left- nor right-dominant.

In iambic pentameter, for example, monosyllabic words are often used on the weak beats:

w   s w    s       w    s    w    s w    s w  
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!

_{(Shakespeare, Hamlet)}

So being "left-centered" is a property of polysyllabic content words like nouns and adjectives, not sentences or noun phrases. Good to know. +1 — DyingIsFun, Nov 02 '16 at 02:03

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 02 '16 at 01:02

It's pretty hopeless trying to analyze English meter with 'feet'. What shapes the English line is a fixed number of stresses, with unstressed and secondarily stressed syllables variously disposed around them to yield a more or less regular rhythm and to accelerate or retard the flow. Even the "iambic pentameter" line which dominated English poetry from Chaucer to the Romantics is neither five-footed nor iambic: any given 'foot' may have whatever pattern meets the poet's immediate need, and the line as a whole is the old four-stress line which goes back to Beowulf and forward to Bob Dylan.

Measuring English poetry by the foot is like analysing English grammar by case and conjugation. Both worked reasonably well when their practitioners knew Latin and had sufficient experience—working experience—of the difference between Latin and English to know when the Classical terminology stopped being relevant. We still use terms like "dative" and "gerund" and "infinitive" which have only a metaphoric reference to English linguistic phenomena, and there's no harm in saying that "Now is the winter of our discontent" is a line of "iambic pentameter with a trochee in the first foot".

But you can't substitute the terms for the facts. If you want to understand the English line, read it aloud and find the musical rhythm: so many beats to the bar, in four or in six, with or without pickups.

analyze ... meter with 'feet' Ha! I see what you did there. Anyway, I buy all my poesy by the foot. Cheaper that way. — deadrat, Nov 02 '16 at 01:10
This doesn't explain why linguists say English is left-dominant. — Laurel, Nov 02 '16 at 03:05
@Laurel Could you provide citations of these linguists so we may read their work and judge their competence? — StoneyB on hiatus, Nov 02 '16 at 10:43
@StoneyB The claim's made in the source in my answer (also here). There's also claims that are not specific to English. There's more out there, but so little comment space. — Laurel, Nov 02 '16 at 14:52

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

Possibly completely unrelated, and overly literal interpretation, but with my military background, I immediately drew a connection of the left foot emphasis with drill cadences, which are somewhat poetic.

When marching, each march begins with the left foot literally -- it's the first foot everyone in formation steps forward with -- and all commands while moving in formation are issued when stepping on the left foot. Even when just marching (or running double-time) I remember my Drill Instructor bellowing:

Left,

Left,

Lefty-right-a-left.

Left foot,

Drill foot,

Kill foot.

Even on the firing range, when shooting while moving, the left foot is preferred while pulling the trigger.

Marching and cadence are ancient practices; traditions handed down over millennia. I can't help but think that ancient cadence writers were also soldiers and poets! There's cadences for keeping long marches moving, and cadences for moving formations precisely where they need to go. All of them emphasize the left foot, literally.

It's a stretch, but maybe?

Why is English foot generally regarded as left-dominant foot?

3 Answers3