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Phonotactics as phonology: knowledge of a complex restriction in Dutch*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2012

René Kager  and
Joe Pater
René Kager
Affiliation:
University of Utrecht
Joe Pater
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Abstract

The Dutch lexicon contains very few sequences of a long vowel followed by a consonant cluster whose second member is a non-coronal. We provide experimental evidence that Dutch speakers have implicit knowledge of this gap, which cannot be reduced to the probability of segmental sequences or to word-likeness as measured by neighbourhood density. The experiment also suggests that the ill-formedness of this sequence is mediated by syllable structure: it has a weaker effect on speakers' judgements when the last consonant begins a new syllable. We provide an account in terms of Hayes & Wilson's (2008) maximum entropy model of phonotactics, using constraints that go beyond the complexity permitted by their model of constraint induction.

Type
Articles
Information
Phonology , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , May 2012 , pp. 81 - 111
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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