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Phonotactic constraints and sub-syllabic structure: A difficult relationship1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2014

THOMAS BERG  and
CHRISTIAN KOOPS
THOMAS BERG*
Affiliation:
Department of English, University of Hamburg
CHRISTIAN KOOPS*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of New Mexico
*
Authors' addresses: (Berg) Department of English, University of Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 6, 20146 Hamburg, Germany[email protected]
(Koops) Department of Linguistics, 1 University of New Mexico, MSC03 2130, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA[email protected]
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Abstract

Of late, a controversy has arisen over the internal structure of Korean syllables. While there is general agreement that non-phonotactic criteria argue for left-branching, Lee & Goldrick's (2008) left-branching phonotactic analysis is contradicted by Berg & Koops's (2010) claim as to a phonotactically symmetrical syllable structure. A comparison of the methodologies of the two studies, a revisit of the previous data and a new analysis cement the conclusion that there is neither a left-branching nor a right-branching phonotactic effect in Korean syllables. An investigation of the phonotactic structure of Finnish CVC syllables, which exhibit a psycholinguistic left-branching bias much like Korean, reveals that word-initial syllables possess a largely symmetrical organization whereas word-final syllables tend to show a right-branching slant. This curious set of results is consistent with the following three hypotheses: (i) The phonotactic criterion has an inherent VC bias. (ii) Symmetrical syllable structures represent a compromise between left- and right-branching effects. (iii) The strength of phonotactic constraints increases from earlier to later portions of words. The bottom line of this analysis is that, contra all previous claims, phonotactic constraints cannot be used as an argument for sub-syllabic constituency. We discuss the proposal that the basis of the left-branching bias in Korean syllables is instead to be found in the high degree of coarticulation between the onset consonant and the following vowel.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 3 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

[1]

We extend our gratitude to Florian Biermann and especially to Frauke Gebauer for performing the Herculean task of coding the Finnish data as well as to You-Mi Seo and Frauke Gebauer for their native-speaker advice on languages which we are not so familiar with. The reports of the JL referees are also acknowledged with gratitude.

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