On the status of final consonant clusters in English syllables (original) (raw)
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The Internal Structure of Word-Initial Consonant Clusters* 1
Journal of memory and language, 1986
The representation of word-initial consonant clusters is explored by examining speech errors that involve a cluster made up of two consonants, such as iprl of pray. Spontaneous speech errors and four studies of experimentally induced speech errors yielded similar results. The first member of a cluster is less likely to be lost, added, or mispronounced than the second member of the cluster. In addition, the first member of the cluster is more similar to a singleton consonant than the second member. Simple activation-based explanations cannot account for this data. We argue that clusters must contain two distinct types of syllable positions: a Cl position (also found with singleton consonants) and a C2 position (found only in chrsters).
The division between onsets and rimes in English syllables
1986
Linguistic and psycholinguistic evidence suggests that the English syllable has two main parts-an onset (initial consonant or cluster) and a rime (vowel and any following consonants). For example, subjects learn manipulations that respect the unity of onsets and rimes more easily than manipulations that do not. The present results showed that these findings held for real words as well as for nonwords and for three-consonant onsets as well as for one-and two-consonant onsets. The strength of the onset/rime division did not vary with the phonetic category of the prevocalic consonant. Finally, although college students learned a word game involving the analysis of syllables more quickly than did S-year-olds, the two groups showed similar effects of syllable structure. Q
Syllable Structure and the Distribution of Phonemes in English Syllables
Journal of Memory and Language, 1997
In describing the phonotactics (patterning of phonemes) of English syllables, linguists have focused on absolute restrictions concerning which phonemes may occupy which slots of the syllable. To determine whether probabilistic patterns also exist, we analyzed the distributions of phonemes in a reasonably comprehensive list of uninflected English CVC (consonant-vowelconsonant) words, some 2001 words in all. The results showed that there is a significant connection between the vowel and the following consonant (coda), with certain vowel-coda combinations being more frequent than expected by chance. In contrast, we did not find significant associations between the initial consonant (onset) and the vowel. These findings support the idea that English CVC syllables are composed of an onset and a vowel-coda rime. Implications for lexical processing are discussed. ᭧ 1997 Academic Press
International Journal of Current Science Research and Review, 2021
This study attempts to describe the ability of the English Department students, Faculty of Humanities, Udayana University in pronouncing English final consonant clusters. Consonant clusters are groups of consonants that can occur initia lly (onset) and finally (coda) in the syllable structure. The features of consonant clusters in each language are highly dependent on the language itself. In English, the number of consonants at the beginning of a syllable can be up to three such as: structure /strʌktʃə/, spring /sprIŋ/, while the number of consonants that forms a cluster in the coda can be up to four as in sixths /siksθs/, texts /teksθs/. While, Consonant clusters in Indonesian and Balinese as the mother tongue of students are very limited in number and only exist initially in the words. This difference, obviously, creates problems for students in pronouncing English words containing these consonant clusters The knowledge of the English sound system is taught in the English phonetic...
Regularities of the English consonantal clusters development
Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 2021
The paper presents the results of a complex study of сonsonantal phonemes' syntagmatics, registered at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the word throughout the historical development of the English language. The analysis of frequencies of consonantal clusters' actualization allowed the author to characterize the regularities of their occurring within the word structure as well as describe dynamics of their changes during the history of English. The following issues common for different languages are the main aspects for consideration of the problem elaborated in the paper: the emergence of new phonemic sequences (combinability), the occurrence of phonemic changes at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the word, the emergence of new phonemes and phonologization processes of the already existing ones, new functional load of phonemes and their ability to combine, the suitability of consonants to join new clusters, the study of the phenomenon of phonemic...
This paper investigates how different syllable affiliations of intervocalic /st/ cluster affect vowel-to-vowel coarticulation in English. Very few studies have examined the effect of syllable structure on vowel-to-vowel coarticulation. Previous studies show that onset and coda consonants differ acoustically, articulatorily, perceptually and typologically. Onsets are stronger, more stable, more common and more distinguishable than codas. Since codas are less constrained, it was hypothesized that coda /st./ would allow more vowel-to-vowel coarticulation than onset /.st/. Three vowels (/i ɑ u/) were used to form the target sequences with the /st/ cluster in English: onset /CV.stVC/, heterosyllabic /CVs.tVC/, coda /CVst.VC/. F1 and F2 frequencies at vowel edges and the durations of the first vowel and the intervocalic consonants were measured from six speakers of Standard Southern British English. Factors included in the experiment are: Direction, Syllable Form, Target, Context. Results show that coda /st./ allows more vowel-to-vowel coarticulation than onset /.st/, and heterosyllabic /s.t/ is the most resistant among the Syllable Forms. Vowels in heterosyllabic /s.t/ are more extreme than in the other two Syllable Forms in the carryover direction. These findings suggest that vowel-to-vowel coarticulation is sensitive to different syllable structure with the same segmental composition. Possible factors contributing to the observed patterns are discussed.
Onsets and rimes as units of spoken syllables: Evidence from children
The effects of syllable structure on the development of phonemic analysis and reading skills were examined in four experiments. The experiments were motivated by theories that syllables consist of an onset (initial consonant or cluster) and a rime (vowel and any following consonants). Experiment 1 provided behavioral support for the syllable structure model by showing that 8-year-olds more easily learned word games that treated onsets and rimes as units than games that did not. Further support for the cohesiveness of the onset came from Experiments 2 and 3, which found that 4-and 5-year-olds less easily recognized a spoken or printed consonant target when it was the first phoneme of a cluster than when it was a singleton. Experiment 4 extended these results to printed words by showing that consonant-consonant-vowel nonsense syllables were more difficult for beginning readers to decode than consonant-vowel-consonant syllables. o 1985 Academic Press. Inc.
Structural complexity of consonant clusters: A phonologist’s view
Philip Hoole, Lasse Bombien, Marianne Pouplier, Christine Mooshammer and Barbara Kühnert (eds.), Consonant clusters and structural complexity (Interface Explorations, 26), Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2012, 11-31, 2012
Abstract: This paper attempts a definition of consonant clusters, consonant cluster complexity, and cluster complexity reduction in a phonological perspective. In particular, since at the present stage of our knowledge a metrical (and thus: general) definition of consonant cluster complexity is not possible, a relative and structure-dependent concept is proposed: Only clusters within the scope of one and the same preference law can be compared, namely evaluated as the more complex the less preferred they are in terms of that preference law. This concept, as well as ways in which cluster complexity is reduced, are illustrated with examples from various languages. They include word-initial muta-cum-liquida reductions in Spanish and Portuguese, certain cases of “metathesis at a distance” (e.g. Spanish periglo > peligro ‘danger’), and slope displacements as in Old Italian ca.'pes.tro > ca.'pres.to ‘rope’, Tuscan pa.'dro.ne > pra.'do.ne ‘lord, employer’. The opposite kind of development, namely the formation and complexification of clusters, is argued for the most part not to be motivated by syllable structure preferences but (a) by a variety of syntactic and morphological processes and (b) in phonology itself by rhythmically induced copations (e.g. syncope in Latin periculo > Spanish periglo), or to result from borrowing.