Epenthesis and syllable weight

Abstract

A standard assumption in the moraic theory of syllable weight is that a syllable must contain at least one mora, which is usually associated with a vowel. This paper presents arguments and evidence against this assumption. The evidence is drawn primarily from the behavior of epenthetic syllables in Mohawk and Iraqi Arabic with brief reference to Selayarese and Yapese. It is demonstrated that weight-sensitive phenomena such as stress assignment, vowel lengthening, and the bimoraicity of the minimal word consistently treat certain epenthetic syllables in these languages as lacking weight. To explain the behavior of epenthetic syllables, the paper proposes a revision to the theory of epenthesis to permit ‘stranded’ or unlicensed consonants to project (or be mapped) to syllables that have no weight. Such syllables may remain without a vocalic nucleus throughout the phonology and as such are interpreted as weightless by various phonological processes.