Phonological Strength and Preferred Syllable Structure

Abstract

Recent approaches in the area of syllable structure and markedness suffer from a number of inadequacies. In particular, inadequate consideration is given to the role that markedness theory can play in accounting for language specific characteristics of syllable structure. By contrast, a new approach based on the gradient nature of linguistic preferences, provides insight into both synchronic aspects of language specific syllabication and diachronic aspects of syllable structure change.