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

From:dirk elzinga <dirk.elzinga@...>
Date:Wednesday, July 18, 2001, 19:49
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