A Syllabic Parser in Prolog

The main objetive of this work is to construct and implement a Prolog program capable of analyzing the syllable structure of phonic sequences in Catalan. As a consequence of that, we expect to be able to start a reflection about the theoretical implications that derive from the election of a particular implementation. In the first section, we present a number of common assumptions concerning syllable structure in general and about the structure of the syllable in the Catalan language. In the second and third sections, we analyze the phenomenon and provide a Prolog implementation that captures the observed regularities. We proceed gradually, presenting, first, a simplfied version (Syllabic Parser I) and, later, a slightly more elaborated one (Syllabic Parser II); the code for both versions is included in the two appendices found at the end of this paper. Last section is an attempt to establish some connections between the implementation strategies we used and a number of theoretical generalizations suggested from the perspetive of a theory of markedness and a number of concepts developed within the framework of Optimality Theory.