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Linguistics

Notes Loanwords

Consonant clusters occurring in loanwords do not necessarily follow the cluster limits set by the
borrowing language’s phonotacties. The Ubykh language’s root psta, a loan from Adyghe, violates
Ubykh’s rule of no more than two initial consonants; also, the English words sphere /’sfI r/ and
e
sphinx /’sfiŋks/, Greek loans, violate the restraint (or constraint, see also optimality theory) that two
fricatives may not appear adjacently word-initially.
English

In English, the longest possible initial cluster is three consonants, as in split /’splIt/ and strudel /
’  tru:d l/, all beginning with /s/ or /  / and ending with /l/ or /r/; the longest possible final
e
cluster is five consonants, as in angsts /’aeŋksts/, though that is rare and four, as in twelfths /’tw  lf s/
, sixths /’sIks  s/, bursts /’ b rsts / and glimpsed /’gl  mpst/, is more common. In compound words,
longer clusters are possible, as in handspring /’h æ ndspri ŋ /.
However, it is important to distinguish clusters and digraphs. Clusters are made of two or more
consonant sounds, while a digraph is a group of two consonant letters standing for a single sound. For
example, in the word ship, the two letters of the digraph sh  together represent the single consonant
[  ]. Also note a combination digraph and cluster as seen in length with two digraphs ng  , th 
representing a cluster of two consonants: / ŋ  /; lights with a silent digraph gh  followed by a

cluster t  , s  : /ts/; and compound words such as sightscreen /’saItskri:n/ or catchphrase /’ kæt fre Iz .
The phonological history of English consonant clusters is part of the phonological history of the
English language in terms of changes in the phonology of consonant clusters.
9.1 Clusters

Most English syllables consist of more than one vowel. We must examine what they can consist of,
because it is not sufficient to add any consonant or group of consonants to a vowel to get an English
syllable: /pte  / is not a syllable of English whereas /ple / and /ste  / are.
The construction of a syllable is always organised around a vowel which is the nucleus, i.e. the
indispensable element of the syllable. What comes before the nucleus is called onset and what follows
it is called termination. Neither onset nor termination are necessary. They occur separately, or together
with the nucleus, as illustrated in the table below:
Table: 9.1 Structure of the syllable

onset nucleus termination examples

nucleus only -- X -- /a:/ are

onset + nucleus X X -- /bi:/ bee
nucleus + -- X X / :t/ ought
termination

onset + nucleus + X X X /bed/ bed
termination

There are restrictions as to the position consonant phonemes can occupy: for example / ŋ/ can never
occur before a vowel; just as /h/, /w/ and /j/ can never occur after a vowel. Our list does not
include /r/ as in RP, it never occurs in a termination cluster.

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