English syllabification as the interaction of markedness constraints

Authors

  • Tracy Alan Hall

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21248/zaspil.37.2004.244

Abstract

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.

 

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Published

2004-01-01

How to Cite

Hall, Tracy Alan. 2004. “English Syllabification As the Interaction of Markedness Constraints”. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 37 (January):1-36. https://doi.org/10.21248/zaspil.37.2004.244.