Ternary foot

A ternary foot is a prosodic foot consisting of three syllables.

Subtypes

• amphibrach (weak strong weak)
• anapest (weak weak strong)
• dactyl (strong weak weak)

Comments

Given the rareness of languages (such as Cayuvava) where stress falls on every third syllable, there has been debate over whether ternary feet exist as phonological constituents or whether all linguistically relevant feet are binary (i.e., iambs and trochees).