| ROA: | 491 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Falling sonority onsets, loanwords, and Syllable Contact |
| Authors: | Maria Gouskova |
| Comment: | CLS 37 proceedings, 2002 |
| Length: | 11 |
| Abstract: | When CVC languages borrow loanwords with complex onsets, they often repair the clusters differently depending on sonority: vowel epenthesis is peripheral in s-obstruent words, English ‘speech’ > Central Pahari [ispiitS], but internal in rising sonority clusters, English ‘slate’ > Central Pahari [silet]. Previous analyses (Selkirk 1982, Broselow 1992) have attributed the pervasive split pattern to the different structure of s-obstruent clusters: they are complex segments and cannot be broken up by epenthesis. I propose instead that the pattern is an effect of SYLLABLE CONTACT (‘sonority falls across a syllable boundary’). Epenthesis in clusters is peripheral whenever the resulting VCCV sequence has falling sonority, as in s-obstruent clusters. Epenthesis breaks up the cluster when sonority would rise, creating a CVCV sequence. New evidence shows that the purported limitation of the split pattern to s-obstruent clusters is an artifact of the source of the loanwords, English and French. Russian has a wide variety of falling and flat sonority clusters, which are repaired differently in Kirgiz: by peripheral epenthesis in falling and flat sonority onsets, zveno ‘link’ > [uzvana], and by internal epenthesis in rising sonority onsets, kvas ‘kvass’> [kWbas]. The resistance of s-clusters to epenthesis is thus shown to arise from independently needed constraints rather than from a difference in structure. |
| Type: | Paper/tech report |
| Area/Keywords: | Phonology |
| Article: | Version 1 |