Theoretical and empirical approaches to phonotactics and morphonotactics

Abstract

Phonotactics deals with constraints shaping the form of speech. Constraints may either be universal or language-specific; they may be grounded on properties of the articulatory content or on auditory salience. By organizing the form of speech and enhancing perception, phonotactic constraints simplify language acquisition and storage. Therefore they play a fundamental role in cognition, both in children's acquisition and adult processing. This volume brings together some of the most relevant European projects currently dealing with phonotactics from an empirical perspective. Some of the papers deal in particular with morphonotactics, i.e. the area of intersection between phonotactics and morphotactics. In those contributions, evidence is provided supporting the hypothesis that a given sound sequence is processed differently when it occurs across a morpheme boundary, compared with the morpheme internal position. This volume is of particular importance for functionalist and naturalist approaches to phonological complexity. Universal preferences of sound organization and language-specific constraints on phoneme and morpheme concatenation are investigated in English, German, Dutch, Italian and Polish.