Highly Complex Syllable Structure - Hardcover

Easterday, Shelece

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1013294572 ISBN 13: 9781013294570

Publisher: Saint Philip Street Press, 2020

Synopsis

The syllable is a natural unit of organization in spoken language whose strongest cross-linguistic patterns are often explained in terms of a universal preference for the CV structure. Syllable patterns involving long sequences of consonants are both typologically rare and theoretically marginalized, with few approaches treating these as natural or unproblematic structures. This book is an investigation of the properties of languages with highly complex syllable patterns. The two aims are (i) to establish whether these languages share other linguistic features in common such that they constitute a distinct linguistic type, and (ii) to identify possible diachronic paths and natural mechanisms by which these patterns come about in the history of a language. These issues are investigated in a diversified sample of 100 languages, 25 of which have highly complex syllable patterns.

This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

Edition details

• Publisher: Saint Philip Street Press
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1013294572
• ISBN 13: 9781013294570
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 614