Re: THEORY: Ray on ambisyllabicity

On Sun, 15 Oct 2000, Nik Taylor wrote:

> And Rosta wrote:
> > Yeah. We need to ask Dirk how he accounts for:
> >
> >   Sal   [saw]
> >   Sally [sali]
> >
> > in demotic SE Insular English, if /l/ isn't in an onset in "Sally".
> > Also:
>
> I've noticed that all these different arguments are using different
> dialects.  Is it not conceivable that in some dialects it *is*
> ambisyllabic, while in others it isn't?  Or that some dialects have
> /h&p.i/ while others have /h&.pi/, and perhaps some with ambisyllabic
> consonants?  In my dialect, for instance, I can find no evidence to
> support the idea of the "ambisyllabic" consonants as even being onsets,
> yet it seems that in this dialect it is an onset.  I wonder, does that
> dialect have evidence supporting /l/ as being a coda at all in Sally?
The issue for me is if ambisyllabicity exists *at all*; if it does,
then one must look to the data to see if it applies in this or that
dialect. Up until now, I have been reluctant to admit the possibility
of ambisyllabicity *as a possible structure*, regardless of the
dialect under consideration. This reluctance is admittedly based on
theory-internal arguments, but there are other analyses available
which account for the "ambisyllabic" facts without invoking
ambisyllabicity.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga
dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu