AN OPTIMALITY THEORY ANALYSIS OF NÅŠWÆ SYLLABLE STRUCTURE

Esther Phubon Chie Epse Asonganyi

Abstract


In the early forms of generative phonology, the syllable played no role (Clements and Keyser, 1983). Syllables are often considered as the phonological “building blocks†of words. They can influence the rhythm of a language, its prosody, its poetic meter, or its stress pattern. It is also considered “the smallest unit of speech that normally occurs in isolation, consisting of either a vowel alone (as in the pronunciation of the pronoun oar, ore, awe, I, eye, air, heir, err, our, hour, or, ah, etc.) or a combination of vowels and consonants (as in the pronunciation in, of so, it, two, four, salt, road, etc.)â€. Some consonants can be pronounced alone and may or may not be regarded as syllables (syllabic nasals in most African languages), but they normally accompany vowels, which tend to occupy the central position in a syllable.

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References


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