Re: orthographic syllabification [was: Re: Moraic codas]

On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, John Cowan wrote:

> dirk elzinga wrote:
>
> > 1.  Lax vowels in English strongly prefer to be in a closed
> >     syllable.
> >
> > 2.  Syllables strongly prefer to have onsets.
> >
> > 3.  A consonant may not belong to two syllables at once.
>
> > Of the three, I think that 3 probably has the weakest force [...].
> > 2 isn't very convincing either [...].
>
> > 1 seems to be the weightiest [...].
>
> [snip]
>
> > In my earlier post, I tried to represent a majority opinion,
> > which discounts the possibility of ambisyllabicity, and which is
> > against the violation of the onset requirement.
>
> In short, the majority opinion breaks the weightiest rule to
> preserve the two weaker rules.
>
> *snicker*
Precisely. The particular facts of English get shoved aside in
favor of universal preferences. "But intervocalic consonants
simply *must* be syllabified as onsets; that's how it works
everywhere else ..." It's the Globalization of Linguistics.

> Rule 2 seems to me particularly weak in English, however useful it
> may be elsewhere, as indicated by the vast number of English words
> which begin with slack vowels.  German, closely related as it
> is, has no such words.
Right. German seems to have a more urgent need to satisfy the
onset requirement, so underlyingly vowel-initial words are
introduced with a glottal stop, and vowels in hiatus are
interrupted by the same.

> > In a perfect world free of the stultifying Traditions of the
> > Fathers, the Rational Linguist would boldly proclaim the
> > existence of Ambisyllabic Consonants in English, since that is
> > the conclusion demanded by the Data.
>
> Why reject 3 rather than 2 in the perfect world?
If the avoidance of ambisyllabic consonants rests on nothing in
the real world (other than a linguist's representation), while
the preference for onsets is in fact encountered (even if not
robustly in English), wouldn't Reason dictate the rejection of 3
in favor of 2? Tossing either one out makes me a little uneasy.

> > I haven't made up my mind.
>
>         The only sensible answer to the challenge "Stand!"
>         in the sciences is Falstaff's: "so I do, against my will".
>         One's "definite position" is a liability and a source
>         of error.
>
>                 --Northrop Frye, from memory
I suppose I shall remain undecided, then.

Dirk

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

"The strong craving for a simple formula
has been the undoing of linguists."               - Edward Sapir