Word-stress and the distribution of consonant clusters in English

Abstract

Empty categories have been around in linguistics for a long time already. In particular, Strict CV-Phonology promotes a strictly alternating CV skeleton where members of a traditional consonant cluster enclose an empty vocalic position, while the two consecutive vocalic positions of a long vowel or a diphthong flank an empty consonantal position. Although the concept of empty skeletal positions might seem strange at first blush, its importance can be likened to the importance of the concept of zero in mathematics. This also means that traditional consonant clusters are just surface manifestations of underlying CVCV sequences. The aim of this paper is to seek a principled account for the distribution of different types of vocalic positions and consonant clusters by promoting the algorithm put forward in Csides (2008). It seems that this algorithm treats the distribution of different types of consonant clusters and the distribution of stressed versus unstressed vocalic positions in a unified manner. In order to be able to grasp the parallel between stress-related issues and the distribution of different types of consonant clusters, we must part with some of the basic tenets of standard Government Phonology and Strict CV. Contrary to mainstream assumptions, I wish to maintain bidirectional government in Phonology, cf. Csides (2008). It is important to emphasize that unidirectional theories have been promoted mainly in the phonological literature. Scheer (2004), Szigetvári (1999) and many others assume that government in phonology is strictly right-to-left, an idea that probably originates in the concepts of Proper Government (PG) of standard GP. Rowicka (1999), however, assumes that government proceeds in the opposite direction, i.e., it is left-to-right. Csides (2008) resolves this conflict by proposing that government goes in both directions but in a principled manner. Another novel, non-mainstream proposal of Csides (2008) is also maintained in the present framework, namely that government can target empty and contentful skeletal positions alike.