Phonological Structure and Phonetic Form: Syllable structure and word structure: a study of triconsonantal clusters in English

Current phonological theory maximizes the responsibility of the syllable for explaining co-occurrence restrictions on consonants. The inventory of word-initial consonant clusters is chiefly explained by the constraints on the syllable onset. The syllable coda also plays a central role in explainiug which word-final consonants are permissible. The word node comes into play only by picking up extra peripheral elements, most notably the coronal appendices of English, and by defining the domain for any co-occurrence restrictions which cross syllable boundaries. phonotactic responsibility of the syllable thus maximized, the cross-product of codas and onsets is the starting point for any description of medial clusters. That is, in the absence of additional provisos, any concatenation of a well-formed coda and a well-formed onset is predicted to be possible medially in a word. The present project evaluated the extent to which syllable structure explains the inventory of long medial clusters-the clusters of three or more consonants-in English. It was motivated by the observation that word-internally such clusters are extremely restricted in comparison with the set defined by the cross-product of codas and onsets. The basic model obviously requires moditication, and a detailed examination of the occurring and missing clusters reveals what type of modification is needed. Two methods were applied in the study. The pronunciation fields of the on-line Collins English Dictionary (distributed through the ACL Data Collection Initiative) were used to make an inventory of onsets, codas, and their frequencies, and to establish which medial clusters occur at all. Then, a follow-up experimental study showed that members of the critical set of missing clusters represent systematic rather than accidental gaps. The study deals only with clusters found medially in morphemes. That is, it deals with the triconsonantal clusters found intervocalically in words such as "vanquish," "lobster," "doldrums," "palfrey," and "orchestra," excluding those found in words such as "exactly," "vastness," "width-wise," and "marksman." Clusters found medially in bound morphemes were included, e.g. "anthro," "andro." However, the study does not deal with clusters occurring morpheme peripherally, such as /ntl/ in "gent1 + er," arising from /gentler/. Such cases present additional complications which we hope to investigate in a future study. In the dictionary, 675 distinct clusters of three or more consonants are found. However, only fifty are found morpheme-medially (in a sense of "found" to he made more precise below). Compound words are by far the biggest source of long consonant clusters. The listing of …