Tales of the Unexpected (Phonotactic Dependencies)

Abstract

This contribution looks at a particular type of superheavy rhyme in English: a long vowel/diphthong followed by a nasal-stop cluster. Such sequences show a complex interaction of vowel quality and phonation of the final stop; an interaction that remains obscure under current assumptions about the internal structure of vowels and the representation of phonation. I argue that Government Phonology 2.0, a model where many melodic properties are replaced by structural relations, provides the tools to understand (at least part of) the pattern.