Open AccessEnglish syllabification as the interaction of markedness constraints
Author(s) -
T. A. Hall
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
zas papers in linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1435-9588
DOI - 10.21248/zaspil.37.2004.244
Subject(s) - syllabification , markedness , linguistics , ranking (information retrieval) , computer science , optimality theory , mathematics , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , phonology , philosophy , syllable
The present study offers an Optimality-Theoretic analysis of the syllabification of intervocalic consonants and glides in Modern English. It will be argued that the proposed syllabifications fall out from universal markedness constraints – all of which derive motivation from other languages – and a language-specific ranking. The analysis offered below is therefore an alternative to the traditional rule-based analyses of English syllabification, e.g. Kahn (1976), Borowsky (1986), Giegerich (1992, 1999) and to the Optimality-Theoretic treatment proposed by Hammond (1999), whose analysis requires several language-specific constraints which apparently have no cross-linguistic motivation.