Phonology of English

This text offers an approach to English phonology which focuses on the prosody of the language, ie syllable and foot structure, and does so from an optimality-theoretic (OT) perspective. The emphasis is on surface distributional regularities and the results presented are based on extensive searches through various computerized lexicons. The outcome is a number of new generalizations about the phonology of English, along with confirmation of some familiar regularities. All of these empirical results are discussed in detail and presented in extensive charts with a plethora of examples. The text also offers an OT analysis. This provides an introduction to the intricacies of the theory as applied to a significant amount of data. A number of theoretical proposals are developed in this model, and the analysis presents the idea that certain complex constraints and their ranking can be derived in restricted ways from more basic constraints. In addition, the book also develops the idea that syllables of English can contain from zero to three moras. This book is intended for undergraduates studying linguistics at intermediate level and above; professionals and researchers with an interest in phonology such as, for example, speech pathologists, psychologists, cognitive scientists; and English language specialists.Table of ContentSome basic ideas: the sounds of English; characterizing the sounds of English; phonological generalizations; treating phonological generalizations; optimality theory; further reading. Syllables: intuitive evidence for the syllable; distributional evidence for a syllable; a general theory of the syllable; further reading. English syllables: margins and consonants; word onsets; word-final clusters; medial clusters; clusters versus margins; linear restrictions; summary; further reading. English syllables: peaks and moras; vowels and diphthongs; co-occurrence restrictions; mora-based restrictions; syllabic consonants and [r]; summary; further reading. Stress, accent, and feet: what is stress?; what is a metrical foot?; intuitive evidence for the foot; distributional evidence for the foot; general theory of the foot; further reading. Syllables and stress: basic distributional regularities; the analysis; summary; further reading. The rightmost stress: review of previous results; the basic analysis; the role of syllable weight; other nominal stress patterns; final syllables; verbs and adjectives; summary; further reading. Other stresses: long vowels; nonfinal primary stress; morphemes and feet; summary; further reading. Some remaining issues: statistics; Russian; remaining issues; further reading; references.