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Digvijay Pandya, Lovely Professional University Unit 9: Clusters and Syllables

Unit 9: Clusters and Syllables Notes

CONTENTS
Objective
Introduction
9.1 Clusters
9.2 Syllables
9.3 Summary
9.4 Key-Words
9.5 Review Questions
9.6 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this Unit students will be able to:
• Discuss Clusters.
• Understand Syllables.
Introduction

In linguistics, a consonant cluster (or consonant blend) is a group of consonants which have no
intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups /spl/ and /ts/ are consonant clusters in the
word splits. Some linguists argue that the term can only be properly applied to those consonant
clusters that occur within one syllable. Others contend that the concept is more useful when it includes
consonant sequences across syllable boundaries. According to the former definition, the longest
consonant clusters in the word extra would be /ks/ and /tr, whereas the latter allows /kstr/. The
German word Angstschwei β (/aŋst ∫ vaIs/; “fear sweat”) is another good example, with a cluster of
∫
five consonants: /ŋst v/ .
Languages’ phonotactics differ as to what consonant clusters they permit.
Many languages forbid consonant clusters altogether. Maori and Pirah ã , for instance, forbid any
two consecutive consonants in a word. Japanese is almost as strict, but allows clusters of consonant
plus /j/ as in Tokyo [to: kjo:], the name of Japan’s capital city. Across a syllable boundary, it also
allows a sequence of a nasal plus another consonant, as in Honshu [hon cu:] (the name of the largest
island) and tempura [tempur a] (a traditional dish). A great many languages are more restrictive than
English in terms of consonant clusters; almost every Malayo-Polynesian language forbids consonant
clusters entirely. Tahitian, Samoan and Hawaiian are all of this sort. Standard Arabic forbids initial
consonant clusters and more than two consecutive consonants in other positions. So do most other
Semitic languages, although Modern Israeli Hebrew permits initial two-consonant clusters (e.g. pkak
“cap”; dlat “pumpkin”), and Moroccan Arabic, under Berber influence, allows strings of several
consonants. Like most Mon-Khmer languages, Khmer permits only initial consonant clusters with up
to three consonants in a row per syllable. Finnish has initial consonant clusters natively only on South-
Western dialects and on foreign loans, and only clusters of three inside the word are allowed. Most
spoken languages and dialects, however, are more permissive. In Burmese, consonant clusters of only
up to three consonants (the initial and two medials—two written forms of /-j-/, /-w-/) at the initial
onset are allowed in writing and only two (the initial and one medial) are pronounced. These clusters
are restricted to certain letters. Some Burmese dialects allow for clusters of up to four consonants (with
the addition of the /-l-/ medial, which can combine with the above-mentioned medials.

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