Abstract
AbstractThis article is a reanalysis of cluster simplification in Quebec French (QF) in terms of government-licensing, a condition which requires non-nuclear governing heads to be licensed by a following vowel. It is suggested, contra Côté (1997, 1998), that simplification is triggered by a structural constraint rather than a constraint on sonority. It is shown that in QF, simplification does not apply to word internal clusters such asappartementandvendredibecause the following vowel is realized, but applies to forms liketableandcasque, and converts them into [tab] and [kas] respectively at the surface level due to the lack of a final vowel. However, cluster reduction does not apply to final clusters such asbarbe, gorge, andsoldein which the first member is a liquid. To account for why simplification applies in one case and not in the other, it is suggested that the two types of final clusters differ with respect to syllabification: liquids are within branching nuclei, whereas the first member of other clusters is within a branching rhyme. The case of word-final cluster simplification attested in Haitian Creole is also examined.
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