# Highly complex syllable structure: A typological and diachronic study

Shelece Easterday

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

## To cite this version:

Shelece Easterday. Highly complex syllable structure: A typological and diachronic study. Language Science Press, 2019, 978-3-96110-194-8. 10.5281/zenodo.3268721. hal-04917839

HAL Id: hal-04917839

https://hal.science/hal-04917839v1

Submitted on 28 Jan 2025

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Highly complex
syllable structure

A typological and diachronic study

Shelece Easterday

Studies in Laboratory Phonology 9

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

language
science
press
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

Studies in Laboratory Phonology

Chief Editor: Martine Grice

Editors: Doris Mücke, Taehong Cho

In this series:

1. Cangemi, Francesco. Prosodic detail in Neapolitan Italian.

2. Drager, Katie. Linguistic variation, identity construction, and cognition.

3. Roettger, Timo B. Tonal placement in Tashlhiyt: How an intonation system accommodates to adverse phonological environments.

4. Mücke, Doris. Dynamische Modellierung von Artikulation und prosodischer Struktur: Eine Einführung in die Artikulatorische Phonologie.

5. Bergmann, Pia. Morphologisch komplexe Wörter im Deutschen: Prosodische Struktur und phonetische Realisierung.

6. Feldhausen, Ingo & Fliessbach, Jan & Maria del Mar Vanrell. Methods in prosody: A Romance language perspective.

7. Tilsen, Sam. Syntax with oscillators and energy levels.

8. Ben Hedia, Sonia. Gemination and degemination in English affixation: Investigating the interplay between morphology, phonology and phonetics.

9. Easterday, Shelece. Highly complex syllable structure: A typological and diachronic study.

ISSN: 2363-5576
Highly complex
syllable structure

A typological and diachronic study

Shelece Easterday

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

language
science
press
Easterday, Shelece. 2019. *Highly complex syllable structure: A typological and diachronic study* (Studies in Laboratory Phonology 9). Berlin: Language Science Press.

This title can be downloaded at:

http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/249

© 2019, Shelece Easterday

Published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licence (CC BY 4.0):

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

ISBN: 978-3-96110-194-8 (Digital)

978-3-96110-195-5 (Hardcover)

ISSN: 2363-5576

DOI:10.5281/zenodo.3268721

Source code available from www.github.com/langsci/249

Collaborative reading: paperhive.org/documents/remote?type=langsci&id=249

Cover and concept of design: Ulrike Harbort

Typesetting: Felix Kopecky

Proofreading: Amir Ghorbanpour, Amr El-Zawawy, Carla Bombi, Christian

Döhler, Carmen Jany, Ivica Jeđud, Jeroen van de Weijer, Jezia Talavera, Laura

Arnold, Jean Nitzke, Sarah Babinski, Tom Bossuyt, Varun deCastro-Arrazola

Fonts: Libertinus, Arimo, DejaVu Sans Mono

Typesetting software: XeLATEX

Language Science Press
Unter den Linden 6
10099 Berlin, Germany
langsci-press.org

Storage and cataloguing done by FU Berlin

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /></figure>
For Elise, Ada, Astrid, and Maria:

May you always be curious!
<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>
# Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Abbreviations and conventions ix

1 Syllables and syllable structure 1

1.1 Background 3

1.1.1 The syllable 3

1.1.2 Crosslinguistic patterns in syllable structure 4

1.1.2.1 CV as a universal syllable type 4

1.1.2.2 Asymmetries in onset and coda patterns 6

1.1.2.3 Consonant clusters 8

1.1.2.4 Nucleus patterns 10

1.1.2.5 Syllable structure and morphology 11

1.1.3 Theoretical models and crosslinguistic patterns of syllable structure 12

1.2 Highly complex syllable structure: Typological outlier, theoretical problem 14

1.3 Syllable structure complexity: Accounts and correlations 17

1.3.1 Speech rhythm typologies 17

1.3.2 Other holistic typologies 18

1.3.3 Consonantal and vocalic languages 19

1.4 The current study 21

1.4.1 Research questions 22

1.4.2 Proposed analyses and framework 22

2 Language sample 27

2.1 Language sampling 27

2.1.1 Common sources of bias in language sampling 28

2.1.2 Other factors which may influence phonological structure and syllable complexity 30

2.1.2.1 Population 30

2.1.2.2 Language endangerment 30

2.1.2.3 Ecological factors 31

2.1.3 Specific considerations in the current study 31
Contents

<table><tbody><tr><td>2.2</td><td>Defining the categories of syllable structure complexity</td><td>32</td></tr><tr><td>2.2.1</td><td>Long sequences of obstruents: Tautosyllabic clusters or syllabic consonants?</td><td>34</td></tr><tr><td>2.2.2</td><td>Highly Complex syllable structure: A definition</td><td>37</td></tr><tr><td>2.3</td><td>Constructing the language sample</td><td>38</td></tr><tr><td>2.4</td><td>Language sample for current study</td><td>39</td></tr><tr><td>2.4.1</td><td>Areal features of sample</td><td>39</td></tr><tr><td>2.4.2</td><td>Genealogical features of sample</td><td>44</td></tr><tr><td>2.4.3</td><td>Sociolinguistic features of sample</td><td>45</td></tr><tr><td>2.5</td><td>Data collection</td><td>47</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>Syllable structure patterns in sample</td><td>49</td></tr><tr><td>3.1</td><td>Introduction</td><td>49</td></tr><tr><td>3.1.1</td><td>Crosslinguistic studies of syllable structure</td><td>49</td></tr><tr><td>3.1.2</td><td>Considerations in the current chapter</td><td>52</td></tr><tr><td>3.2</td><td>Methodology</td><td>54</td></tr><tr><td>3.2.1</td><td>Patterns considered</td><td>54</td></tr><tr><td>3.2.2</td><td>Status of inserted vowels</td><td>57</td></tr><tr><td>3.2.3</td><td>Edges of categories</td><td>61</td></tr><tr><td>3.2.4</td><td>Coding</td><td>63</td></tr><tr><td>3.3</td><td>Results for language sample</td><td>64</td></tr><tr><td>3.3.1</td><td>Maximal onset and coda sizes</td><td>64</td></tr><tr><td>3.3.2</td><td>Relationship between onset and coda complexity</td><td>67</td></tr><tr><td>3.3.3</td><td>Syllable structure complexity and obligatoriness of syllable margins</td><td>68</td></tr><tr><td>3.3.4</td><td>Vocalic nucleus patterns</td><td>70</td></tr><tr><td>3.3.5</td><td>Syllabic consonants</td><td>71</td></tr><tr><td>3.3.6</td><td>Morphological patterns</td><td>75</td></tr><tr><td>3.4</td><td>Properties of highly complex syllable structure</td><td>83</td></tr><tr><td>3.4.1</td><td>Examples of Highly Complex syllable patterns in sample</td><td>83</td></tr><tr><td>3.4.2</td><td>Prevalence of Highly Complex syllable patterns within languages</td><td>86</td></tr><tr><td>3.4.3</td><td>Acoustic and perceptual characteristics</td><td>91</td></tr><tr><td>3.5</td><td>Discussion</td><td>96</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>Phoneme inventories and syllable structure complexity</td><td>101</td></tr><tr><td>4.1</td><td>Introduction</td><td>101</td></tr><tr><td>4.1.1</td><td>Crosslinguistic patterns in consonant inventories</td><td>103</td></tr><tr><td>4.1.2</td><td>Crosslinguistic patterns in vowel inventories</td><td>106</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tbody><tr><td>4.1.3</td><td>Segmental inventories and syllable structure complexity</td><td>107</td></tr><tr><td>4.1.4</td><td>The current study and hypotheses</td><td>109</td></tr><tr><td>4.2</td><td>Methodology</td><td>111</td></tr><tr><td>4.2.1</td><td>Patterns considered</td><td>111</td></tr><tr><td>4.2.2</td><td>Coding</td><td>116</td></tr><tr><td>4.3</td><td>Results: Vowel inventories</td><td>118</td></tr><tr><td>4.3.1</td><td>Vowel quality inventory size</td><td>118</td></tr><tr><td>4.3.2</td><td>Contrastive vowel length</td><td>119</td></tr><tr><td>4.3.3</td><td>Other vowel contrasts</td><td>122</td></tr><tr><td>4.3.4</td><td>Diphthongs and vowel sequences</td><td>124</td></tr><tr><td>4.3.5</td><td>Vocalic nucleus inventories and syllable structure complexity</td><td>125</td></tr><tr><td>4.3.6</td><td>Summary of vowel patterns in sample</td><td>126</td></tr><tr><td>4.4</td><td>Results: Consonant inventories</td><td>127</td></tr><tr><td>4.4.1</td><td>Consonant phoneme inventory size</td><td>127</td></tr><tr><td>4.4.2</td><td>Elaborations</td><td>130</td></tr><tr><td>4.4.3</td><td>Phonation features</td><td>134</td></tr><tr><td>4.4.4</td><td>Place features</td><td>137</td></tr><tr><td>4.4.5</td><td>Manner features</td><td>143</td></tr><tr><td>4.4.6</td><td>Summary of consonant patterns in sample</td><td>147</td></tr><tr><td>4.5</td><td>Discussion</td><td>150</td></tr><tr><td>4.5.1</td><td>Segmental inventory patterns and syllable structure complexity</td><td>150</td></tr><tr><td>4.5.2</td><td>Articulations and contrasts characteristic of the Highly Complex category</td><td>154</td></tr><tr><td>4.5.2.1</td><td>Palato-alveolars</td><td>154</td></tr><tr><td>4.5.2.2</td><td>Uvulars</td><td>157</td></tr><tr><td>4.5.2.3</td><td>Ejectives</td><td>159</td></tr><tr><td>4.5.2.4</td><td>Affricates</td><td>161</td></tr><tr><td>4.5.2.5</td><td>More post-velar distinctions and pharyngeals</td><td>163</td></tr><tr><td>4.5.3</td><td>Articulations and consonantal contrasts characteristic of the Simple category</td><td>164</td></tr><tr><td>4.5.3.1</td><td>Prenasalization</td><td>164</td></tr><tr><td>4.5.3.2</td><td>Flaps/taps</td><td>166</td></tr><tr><td>4.5.4</td><td>Segmental patterns, sound change, and syllable structure complexity</td><td>168</td></tr></tbody></table>
Contents

<table><tr><td>5</td><td>Suprasegmental patterns</td><td>171</td></tr><tr><td>5.1</td><td>Introduction</td><td>171</td></tr><tr><td>5.1.1</td><td>Word stress and tone</td><td>171</td></tr><tr><td>5.1.2</td><td>Suprasegmentals and syllable structure complexity</td><td>175</td></tr><tr><td>5.1.3</td><td>The current study and hypotheses</td><td>178</td></tr><tr><td>5.2</td><td>Methodology</td><td>180</td></tr><tr><td>5.2.1</td><td>Patterns considered</td><td>180</td></tr><tr><td>5.2.2</td><td>Coding</td><td>189</td></tr><tr><td>5.3</td><td>Results: Tone</td><td>191</td></tr><tr><td>5.4</td><td>Results: Stress</td><td>191</td></tr><tr><td>5.4.1</td><td>Presence of word stress and syllable structure complexity</td><td>192</td></tr><tr><td>5.4.2</td><td>Stress assignment</td><td>193</td></tr><tr><td>5.4.3</td><td>Phonetic processes conditioned by word stress</td><td>195</td></tr><tr><td>5.4.3.1</td><td>Unstressed vowel reduction</td><td>196</td></tr><tr><td>5.4.3.2</td><td>Processes affecting consonants in unstressed syllables</td><td>197</td></tr><tr><td>5.4.3.3</td><td>Processes affecting consonants in stressed syllables</td><td>198</td></tr><tr><td>5.4.3.4</td><td>Implicational relationships between phonetic processes conditioned by stress</td><td>199</td></tr><tr><td>5.4.4</td><td>Phonological properties of stressed and unstressed syllables</td><td>201</td></tr><tr><td>5.4.5</td><td>Phonetic correlates of stress</td><td>204</td></tr><tr><td>5.4.6</td><td>Summary of word stress patterns</td><td>206</td></tr><tr><td>5.5</td><td>Discussion</td><td>208</td></tr><tr><td>5.5.1</td><td>Suprasegmental patterns and Highly Complex syllable structure</td><td>208</td></tr><tr><td>5.5.2</td><td>Word stress and the development of syllable structure patterns</td><td>212</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>Vowel reduction and syllable structure complexity</td><td>215</td></tr><tr><td>6.1</td><td>Introduction and hypothesis</td><td>215</td></tr><tr><td>6.2</td><td>Methodology</td><td>218</td></tr><tr><td>6.2.1</td><td>Patterns considered</td><td>218</td></tr><tr><td>6.2.2</td><td>Determining what constitutes a process</td><td>222</td></tr><tr><td>6.2.3</td><td>Coding</td><td>223</td></tr><tr><td>6.3</td><td>Results</td><td>225</td></tr><tr><td>6.3.1</td><td>Languages with vowel reduction</td><td>225</td></tr><tr><td>6.3.2</td><td>Number of distinct vowel reduction processes present</td><td>226</td></tr><tr><td>6.3.3</td><td>Affected vowels</td><td>228</td></tr></table>
<table><tbody><tr><td>6.3.4</td><td>Conditioning environments</td><td>230</td></tr><tr><td>6.3.5</td><td>Outcomes</td><td>233</td></tr><tr><td>6.3.6</td><td>Holistic analysis of vowel reduction processes</td><td>238</td></tr><tr><td>6.3.7</td><td>Summary of vowel reduction patterns</td><td>242</td></tr><tr><td>6.4</td><td>Discussion</td><td>242</td></tr><tr><td>6.4.1</td><td>Vowel reduction patterns and Highly Complex syllable structure</td><td>242</td></tr><tr><td>6.4.2</td><td>Implications for development of syllable structure complexity</td><td>247</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>Consonant allophony</td><td>251</td></tr><tr><td>7.1</td><td>Introduction and hypotheses</td><td>251</td></tr><tr><td>7.2</td><td>Methodology</td><td>253</td></tr><tr><td>7.2.1</td><td>Patterns considered</td><td>253</td></tr><tr><td>7.2.2</td><td>Coding</td><td>258</td></tr><tr><td>7.3</td><td>Results</td><td>258</td></tr><tr><td>7.3.1</td><td>Distribution of processes in the language sample</td><td>258</td></tr><tr><td>7.3.2</td><td>Processes resulting in articulations associated with the Highly Complex category</td><td>262</td></tr><tr><td>7.3.3</td><td>Other processes resulting in assimilation of consonants to vowels</td><td>263</td></tr><tr><td>7.3.4</td><td>Other processes resulting in fortition</td><td>265</td></tr><tr><td>7.3.5</td><td>Processes resulting in articulations associated with the Simple category</td><td>266</td></tr><tr><td>7.3.6</td><td>Other processes resulting in lenition or sonorization</td><td>267</td></tr><tr><td>7.3.7</td><td>Summary of results</td><td>269</td></tr><tr><td>7.4</td><td>Discussion</td><td>273</td></tr><tr><td>7.4.1</td><td>Consonant allophony and the development of syllable structure complexity</td><td>274</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>Highly complex syllable structure: Characteristics, development, and stability</td><td>279</td></tr><tr><td>8.1</td><td>Introduction</td><td>279</td></tr><tr><td>8.2</td><td>Syllable structure complexity and morphology</td><td>280</td></tr><tr><td>8.3</td><td>Highly complex syllable structure as a linguistic type</td><td>282</td></tr><tr><td>8.4</td><td>The development of Highly Complex syllable structure</td><td>286</td></tr><tr><td>8.4.1</td><td>Directionality of syllable structure change</td><td>287</td></tr><tr><td>8.4.2</td><td>Clues from the crosslinguistic patterns</td><td>291</td></tr></tbody></table>
Contents

<table><tbody><tr><td>8.4.3</td><td>Comparisons of related pairs of languages in sample</td><td>294</td></tr><tr><td>8.4.3.1</td><td>Uto-Aztecan: Ute and Tohono O'odham</td><td>294</td></tr><tr><td>8.4.3.2</td><td>Arawakan: Apurinã and Yine</td><td>297</td></tr><tr><td>8.4.3.3</td><td>Atlantic-Congo: Yoruba and Lunda</td><td>299</td></tr><tr><td>8.4.3.4</td><td>Indo-European: Darai and Albanian</td><td>301</td></tr><tr><td>8.4.3.5</td><td>Austronesian: Maori and Lelepa</td><td>304</td></tr><tr><td>8.4.3.6</td><td>Summary of patterns</td><td>306</td></tr><tr><td>8.4.4</td><td>The case of Lezgian</td><td>308</td></tr><tr><td>8.4.5</td><td>Language contact and syllable structure complexity</td><td>310</td></tr><tr><td>8.4.6</td><td>Development of Highly Complex syllable structure: Conclusions and questions</td><td>315</td></tr><tr><td>8.5</td><td>Highly complex syllable structure: A stable and motivated pattern</td><td>317</td></tr><tr><td>8.5.1</td><td>Synchronic stability of Highly Complex syllable structure</td><td>319</td></tr><tr><td>8.5.2</td><td>Diachronic stability of syllable complexity</td><td>320</td></tr><tr><td>8.5.3</td><td>Phonetic properties of Highly Complex syllable patterns and long-term stability</td><td>322</td></tr><tr><td>8.6</td><td>Topics for further research</td><td>324</td></tr><tr><td colspan="2">Appendix A: Language sample</td><td>327</td></tr><tr><td colspan="2">Appendix B: Data</td><td>333</td></tr><tr><td colspan="2">References</td><td>547</td></tr><tr><td colspan="2">Index</td><td>585</td></tr><tr><td colspan="2">Name index</td><td>585</td></tr><tr><td colspan="2">Language index</td><td>593</td></tr></tbody></table>
Acknowledgments

This book is a modified version of my Ph.D. dissertation, which was defended in
May 2017 at University of New Mexico. While the book features an updated lan-
guage sample, the findings and interpretations are largely unchanged from the
original study. Neither work would have been possible without the mentorship
and support of many people along the way.

I am particularly grateful to the members of my dissertation committee. My advisor, Caroline Smith, provided helpful and constructive feedback on all aspects of the dissertation and my progress through the Ph.D. Joan Bybee and Ian Maddieson introduced me to language change and phonological typology, respectively, and I have greatly benefited from the inspiring work and mentorship of both. I thank Ioana Chitoran for many thought-provoking discussions of the findings and the next steps in this line of research. Thanks also to Bill Croft.

While writing the original dissertation I was fortunate to have the financial
support of the Joseph H. Greenberg Endowed Fellowship (2011–2015) and the
Russell J. and Dorothy S. Bilinski Fellowship (2016–2017).

Since October 2017, I have been employed as a postdoctoral researcher at Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage (UMR5596, CNRS & Université Lyon 2) in Lyon, France. While revising this book, I have been funded by LabEx ASLAN (ANR-10-LABX-0081) of the Université de Lyon within the French program Investissements d'Avenir. DDL has been a warm, welcoming, and intellectually exciting environment in which to work, and for this I am grateful to my supervisor François Pellegrino, laboratory director Antoine Guillaume, and Anetta Kopecka, the head of the Description, Typologie, et Terrain (DTT) research axis. Special thanks also go to my fellow "postdoc ladies" – Natalia Chousou-Polydouri, Marine Vuillermet, Laetitia de Almeida, Elisa Demuru, and Natasha Aralova – for their friendship and moral support during this stage of our lives and careers, and to DDL alumna Kasia Janic for the use of her magical apartment.

Many specialists kindly answered my inquiries about details of the languages
and language families discussed in this book, including Doug Marmion (Wutung),
Matthew Carter (Bashkir), Netra P. Paudyal (Darai), Jonathan Bobaljik (Itelmen),
Andrey Filchenko (Eastern Khanty), Bonny Sands (Hadza), Kirk Miller (Hadza),
Acknowledgments

Logan Sutton (Kiowa-Tanoan), Rosa Vallejos (Cocama-Cocamilla), Sylvia Tufvesson (Semai), Kasia Wojtylak (Murui Huitoto), and Albert Alvarez Gonzalez (Uto-Aztecan). Tim Zingler, Ricardo Napoleão de Souza, Lexie Adams, and Marc Adams helped me with the translation of reference material from the original German, Portuguese, and Spanish. George Moroz helped construct and format the maps.

Enormous thanks to the team at Language Science Press for all their assistance with improving this work and moving it towards publication, particularly Martine Grice, Sebastian Nordhoff, Felix Kopecky, an anonymous reviewer, and the community proofreading volunteers.

I am grateful to many dear friends for their support over the years that this work was in progress, including Caron Treloar, Lexie Adams, Erin Debenport, Cora McKenna, Francesca Di Garbo, Giorgio Iemmolo, Logan Sutton, Jason Timm, Ricardo Napoleão de Souza, Fabian Armijo, Nick Mathews, Amanda Delgado Galvan, Maurice Pico, Sylvia Tufvesson, Geny Gonzalez Castaño, and Esteban Díaz Montenegro.

Finally, to my family: thank you for everything.
Abbreviations and conventions

<table><tr><td>#</td><td>Word-initial</td><td>MC</td><td>Moderately complex</td></tr><tr><td>_#</td><td>Word-final</td><td>NMLZ</td><td>nominalizer</td></tr><tr><td>1</td><td>first person</td><td>NOM</td><td>nominative</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>third person</td><td>O</td><td>Onset</td></tr><tr><td>AGT</td><td>agentive</td><td>PL</td><td>plural</td></tr><tr><td>C</td><td>Complex</td><td>POSS</td><td>possessive</td></tr><tr><td>CAUS</td><td>causative</td><td>PS</td><td>predicate specifier</td></tr><tr><td>Cd</td><td>Coda</td><td>PST</td><td>past</td></tr><tr><td>CL</td><td>noun class</td><td>REALIS</td><td>realis</td></tr><tr><td>CONT.P</td><td>past continuous</td><td>RECP</td><td>reciprocal</td></tr><tr><td>DAT</td><td>dative</td><td>REFL</td><td>reflexive</td></tr><tr><td>DEM</td><td>demonstrative</td><td>REL</td><td>relativizer</td></tr><tr><td>DUB</td><td>dubitive</td><td>S</td><td>Simple</td></tr><tr><td>F</td><td>feminine</td><td>SG</td><td>singular</td></tr><tr><td>FUT</td><td>future</td><td>RNS</td><td>translated from the original by Ricardo Napoleão de Souza</td></tr><tr><td>HC</td><td>Highly complex</td><td>SME</td><td>translated from the original by Shelece Easterday</td></tr><tr><td>INCL</td><td>inclusive</td><td>TZ</td><td>translated from the original by Tim Zingler</td></tr><tr><td>INF</td><td>infinitive</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>INTERROG</td><td>interrogative</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>ITER</td><td>iterative</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>M</td><td>masculine</td><td>V-less wds</td><td>Words without vowels</td></tr></table>

In this text, some terms referring to syllable structure complexity may appear in both uppercase (e.g. Simple, Highly Complex) and lowercase (e.g. simple, highly complex). When uppercase is used, the term refers to a syllable structure complexity category as strictly defined in §2.2, or to the group of languages in the sample whose syllable patterns belong to that category. This convention is most often used in the presentation and discussion of the quantitative analyses in the book. When lowercase is used, it indicates a more general reference to relative syllable structure complexity. In this usage, the primary object of study is referred to as highly complex syllable structure.
<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>
# 1 Syllables and syllable structure

A syllable is typically thought of as a unit which speakers use to organize sequences of sounds in their languages. The division of the speech stream into syllables reflects the higher levels of organization which are used in the cognitive processes by which speech is planned and perceived. Syllables are a common unit of abstract linguistic analysis; however, this unit seems to be more concrete and accessible to speakers than other phonological units such as segments. A speaker's intuition of what is a pronounceable sequence of sounds is strongly influenced by the syllable patterns of the language they speak. Most languages have relatively simple syllable patterns, in which the alternation between relatively closed (consonantal) and relatively open (vocalic) articulations is fairly regular: syllable patterns such as those in the English words *pillow*, *cactus*, and *tree* are crosslinguistically prevalent. Compare these patterns to the examples below (1–5):

(1) Yakima Sahaptin (Sahaptian; USA)
*ksksa*
‘elephant ear (mushroom)’
(Hargus & Beavert 2006: 29)

(2) Georgian (Kartvelian; Georgia)
*brts’χ’ali*
‘claw’ (Butskhrikidze 2002: 204)

(3) Tashlhiyt (Afro-Asiatic; Morocco)
*ts:kfftst:*
*t-s:-kʃf-t=st:*
‘you dried it (F)’ (Ridouane 2008: 332)

(4) Tehuelche (Chonan; Argentina)
*ktʃaʔʃp/kn*
*k-tʃaʔʃp-ʃ-k’n*
*REFL-wash-PS-REALIS*
‘it is being washed’ (Fernández Garay & Hernández 2006: 13)
# 1 Syllables and syllable structure

(5) Itelmen (Chukotko-Kamchatkan; Russia)
*kłtxuniŋeʔn*
*kł-txuni-ŋeʔn*
'very dark'
(Georg & Volodin 1999: 55)

To speakers of most languages, the long strings of consonants in these examples are not pronounceable without a great deal of practice, being so different from the relatively simpler patterns that are crosslinguistically prevalent. Yet such patterns are fluently acquired and maintained by native speakers of these languages, and may even be relatively frequent in those languages.

Syllable patterns like those illustrated above are typologically rare, occurring in between 5-10% of the world's languages. These languages tend to be found in close geographical proximity to one another, with the Pacific Northwest, the Caucasus region, the Atlas Mountains region, Patagonia, and Northeast Asia being particular "hotspots" for such patterns. The accelerating rates of indigenous language obsolescence in those regions mean that such patterns stand to become even rarer in the coming generations.

The patterns exemplified above are also famous in the literature for the problems they present to standard models of syllabic and phonological representation. While much effort is made to attempt to fit these patterns into various theoretical frameworks, far less research explores the motivations behind their historical development and maintenance in languages.

This book is a typological study exploring the properties of languages with patterns like those above, which I call *highly complex syllable structure*. The studies herein examine a number of phonetic, phonological, and morphological features of these languages. The aims of this study are to establish whether highly complex syllable structure has other linguistic correlates which may suggest a diachronic path (or paths) by which such patterns are likely to evolve.

The book is organized as follows: in the following sections, I discuss findings and accounts for crosslinguistic syllable patterns and their implications for highly complex syllable structure, discuss accounts for syllable complexity more generally, and introduce the research questions examined here. In Chapter 2, I discuss considerations in constructing the language sample and propose a definition for highly complex syllable patterns. In Chapter 3, I conduct analyses of syllable structure patterns in the sample. Analyses of segmental and suprasegmental patterns in the sample are presented in Chapters 4 and 5, respectively. Chapter 6 includes analyses of vowel reduction patterns in the sample. In Chapter 7, I examine specific kinds of consonant allophony in the language sample.
In Chapter 8, the results are summarized and their implications for the research questions are examined.

# 1.1 Background

## 1.1.1 The syllable

The syllable is a natural unit of spoken language by which sounds are organized in speech. The hierarchical organization of speech sounds into syllables is said to be “a fundamental property of phonological structure in human language” (Goldstein et al. 2006: 228), and this unit plays a well-established role in linguistic analysis and description. However, the syllable eludes precise definition: research has not yet established clear and consistent correlates for it at the phonetic, physiological or phonological levels (Bell & Hooper 1978; Laver 1994; Krakow 1999). Much like consonants and vowels, syllables are characterized by distributional, phonetic, and phonological features, of which no single criterion is sufficient for perfectly describing or predicting the trends observed. To take one example of such a criterion, in a review of research on the physiological organization of the syllable, Krakow (1999: 23–34) states that years of research into this topic have yielded “one disappointment after another” and that from an articulatory point of view, the speech stream “simply cannot be divided into discrete, linearly-ordered units the size of the segment or the syllable.” What empirical research has managed to establish with respect to physiological definitions of the syllable is distinct intra- and inter-articulatory patterns for syllable-initial and syllable-final consonants, at least in careful speech. Patterns in the acoustics, phonology, and perception of syllable constituents play an important role in determining and differentiating syllables, but they do not constitute complete or exceptionless definitions of the syllable, either alone or in combination with one another.

Nevertheless, the syllable enjoys a well-established role in phonology, proving to be a highly useful unit in linguistic analysis and description. For many languages, it has been demonstrated that stress placement, tone, reduplication, and other phonological and morphological phenomena operate on the domain of the syllable.<fnref n="1" /> Similarly, the different boundary edges of a syllable are associated with special coarticulatory properties and may serve as environments for

<footnote n="1">¹It should also be noted that phonological syllable structure has been argued to be irrelevant or altogether absent in some languages (e.g. Newman 1947 for Nuxalk; Hyman 2011; 2015 for Gokana; Labrune 2012 for Japanese). In these cases it is argued that phonological phenomena can be satisfactorily described by reference to morae, sequences of segments, and word/phrase junctures.</footnote>
# 1 Syllables and syllable structure

allophonic processes. While native speaker intuitions regarding the precise location of syllable boundaries are not always consistent, there is a wealth of evidence that the unit has psychological reality to speakers: e.g. in the existence of syllabary writing systems, word games and secret languages using syllables as target structures, poetry and lyrical song which exploit syllable counts and syllable constituent patterns in a systematic way, and consistent speaker intuitions regarding the number of syllables in a word (Bell & Hooper 1978; Blevins 1995; Vallée et al. 2009).

Additional evidence for the syllable as an organizational unit of language lies in the observation that those sequences of sounds analyzed as syllables pattern in remarkably similar ways across languages. In fact, strong crosslinguistic tendencies are observed for practically every dimension along which syllable structure can be analyzed. Some of these patterns will be summarized in the following section.

## 1.1.2 Crosslinguistic patterns in syllable structure

Here I describe some of the crosslinguistic patterns of syllable structure that have been observed in the literature. In the following sections I use the descriptive terms *onset*, *nucleus*, and *coda* to refer to constituent parts of the syllable: the nucleus consists of the auditory peak of the syllable, typically a vowel; the onset refers to the consonant or group of consonants preceding the nucleus; and the coda refers to the consonant or group of consonants following the nucleus. It is useful to make these distinctions because these constituents have been shown to behave independently of one another in many respects, both within languages and crosslinguistically. In the following sections, the terms are used in a more or less theoretically neutral sense, and often in reference to phonetic realizations, rather than abstract representations, of the syllable. In theoretical models, the phonological constituency of syllables may be posited to take other forms; some of these issues are discussed in §1.1.3.

### 1.1.2.1 CV as a universal syllable type

One robust pattern in syllable structure typology is the crosslinguistic ubiquity of syllables of the shape CV: a single consonant followed by a vowel.<fnref n="2" /> Though it has been claimed that CV syllables are found in all languages, for a few languages it has been posited that this structure does not occur (cf. Breen & Pensalfini 1999

<footnote n="2">²In syllable structure analysis, the notations C and V are used for consonant and vowel segments, respectively.</footnote>
for Arrernte, Sommer 1969 for the Oykangand dialect of Kunjen, both Australian languages). Such analyses are typically highly abstract and apply only to “underlying” syllable forms: for both Arrernte and Kunjen it has been shown that CV structures do occur in “surface” phonetic forms (Anderson 2000; Sommer 1969; 1981).

Due to its crosslinguistic prevalence, the CV structure has been called the universal syllable type and the least marked of all syllable structures (Zec 2007). CV structures are set apart from other syllable types in numerous aspects of their behavior. If only one syllable type occurs in a language, that type will be of the form CV. Such languages are rare, but attested: they include Hawaiian (Maddieson 2011) and Hua (Blevins 1995). CV structures are acquired even before V structures in babbling stages of vocal development and language acquisition (cf. Levelt et al. 2000 for Dutch). The CV structure overwhelmingly predominates in frequency distributions of syllable types within and across languages. In ULSID, a database containing the syllabified lexicons of 17 genealogically and geographically diverse languages, CV syllables account for roughly 54% of the 250,000 syllables, despite the languages having a wide range of attested syllable patterns (Vallée et al. 2009).

Due to the above patterns, CV is often interpreted as a universal primitive element of human language. There are challenges to this view: for example, Bell & Hooper (1978) argue that the characterization of the CV type as inherently “unmarked” is misleading and simplified, as this assumption can be derived from a collection of generalizations regarding other phonological patterns. They argue that the universal status of CV structures can be interpreted as emerging from a conspiracy of other crosslinguistic patterns which include frequent limitations on vowel hiatus and consonant clusters, tendencies toward obligatory consonant-initial or vowel-final word forms, and the fact that the existence of large consonant strings in any word position in a language implies the existence of simple (single C) structures in those positions. As a result of these interacting patterns, it follows that the canonical syllable patterns of any language will include structures of the form CV.

Nevertheless, much of the research on motivations behind crosslinguistic trends in syllable patterns returns to the idea of CV as a universal or otherwise privileged syllable type. Some of these proposals will be discussed in the following sections, as other crosslinguistic patterns relating to syllable structure are discussed.
### 1.1.2.2 Asymmetries in onset and coda patterns

Many of the typological patterns involving syllables reveal asymmetries in the structure, distribution, and frequency of onsets versus codas. It follows from the crosslinguistic ubiquity of the CV syllable type that all languages have syllables with onsets. By comparison, languages in which syllable codas do not occur are not uncommon: for example, 12.6% of the languages whose syllable structures were analyzed in the World Atlas of Language Structures Online (WALS) have canonical CV or (C)V structures only. Thus an implicational relationship holds between codas and onsets: if a language has syllables with codas, then it also has syllables with onsets.

While the CV shape dominates in frequency distributions within and across languages, its mirror image, the VC structure, is not nearly so freely distributed. Its crosslinguistic lexical frequency distribution is tiny compared to that of CV: only 2.5% of the syllables in the ULSID database are of the VC type (Vallée et al. 2009). The presence of VC shapes in a language generally implies the presence of V, CV, and CVC structures as well (Blevins 1995). These striking differences in distribution indicate that onsets and codas are not equivalent structures.

In many languages with single-member codas, consonants in the coda position are restricted to a smaller set of segments than what can be found in onset position. For example, Cocama-Cocamilla has a consonant phoneme inventory of /p t k ts tf x m n r w j/. Any of these consonants may function as a syllable onset, but only the alveolar nasal /n/ and the glides /w j/ occur in coda position (except for under certain structural and prosodic conditions, Vallejos Yopán 2010: 110). Krakow (1999) reports that some classes of segments, such as oral stops, are crosslinguistically disfavored in syllable-final position. Similarly, Clements (1990: 301) observes that when both sonorants and obstruents occur in syllable-final position in a language, the set of permissible obstruents tends to be smaller than the set of permissible sonorants. In a crosslinguistic investigation of syllable frequencies in the lexicons of Hawaiian, Rotokas, Pirahã, Eastern Kadazan, and Shipibo, Maddieson & Precoda (1992) found that CV sequences are relatively unrestricted in their occurrence. Most onset-nucleus combinations in the study occur at rates approximating the values that would be expected from their component segment frequencies. Meanwhile, nucleus-coda combinations are more restricted in their combinatoriality, owing not only to generally smaller sets of allowable consonants in the coda position, but also to restrictions on sequences of particular segments.

Both within and across languages, onsets and codas are most frequently simple, consisting of just one consonant. When languages do have tautosyllabic con-
sonant clusters, they are more likely to occur in the onset position (Blevins 2006). In languages that have tautosyllabic clusters in both onset and coda positions, it is often the case that more elaborate structures are permitted for onsets: these tend to be larger, more frequent, and less restricted in their internal patterns than coda clusters (Greenberg 1978, Blevins 2006). There are of course exceptions to these patterns: Dizin, for instance, has a canonical syllable pattern of (C)V(C)(C)(C) (Beachy 2005). However, as will be shown in §3.3.1, such patterns are crosslinguistically less frequent than their mirror images.

Diverse accounts have been put forth in the literature to account for asymmetries in onset and coda patterns. A long line of research starting with Sievers (1881) and Jespersen (1904) has argued that the internal organization of the syllable is governed by the phonological principle of sonority, a scalar perceptual property of speech sounds. A typical sonority scale is given in (6) with sonority increasing from left to right:

(6) stop < fricative < nasal < liquid < glide < vowel

In this view, the sonority contour of typical and preferred syllable types rises steeply at the beginning of the syllable and falls less steeply from the nucleus to the end of the syllable (Zwicky 1972; Hooper 1976; Greenberg 1978; Clements 1990). Thus an ideal syllable would consist of a simple onset consisting of a low-sonority sound such as a stop, a vocalic nucleus, and either a coda of high sonority, such as a nasal or a liquid, or no coda at all.

Kawasaki-Fukumori (1992) proposes an acoustic-perceptual motivation for certain crosslinguistic syllable patterns, finding that CV sequences are more spectrally dissimilar from one another, and therefore better contrasted, than VC structures. This suggests that onsets are more likely to be correctly perceived by the listener and maintained in languages. In the speech processing literature, it has been found that onsets are more easily identified by listeners than codas (Content et al. 2001) and that codas affect syllable complexity in such a way as to increase the time required for tautosyllabic onset processing (Segui et al. 1991).

Mechanical and temporal constraints on jaw oscillation have been proposed as physiological motivations for the onset-coda asymmetry and predominance of CV patterns observed. In particular, MacNeilage (1998) proposes that CV patterns derive from the earliest forms of human speech, in which open-close alternations of the mouth, simultaneous with phonation, provided a “frame” for articulatory modulation and the emergence of distinct segmental patterns. From an articulatory point of view, the onset-coda asymmetry may reflect differences in intergestural timing between vowels and consonants in onset versus coda position (Byrd 1996b; Browman & Goldstein 1995; Gick et al. 2006; Marin & Pouplier
### 1 Syllables and syllable structure

2010). This body of research has established that the gestural coordination between onset and nucleus is synchronous, with the production of the consonant and vowel being nearly simultaneous and representing a stable timing relationship. As compared to the asynchronous and more variable timing relationship between nucleus and coda, the onset-nucleus relationship is more stable in the motor control aspects of its production.

Finally, from a diachronic point of view, the relatively restricted status of codas may reflect the effects of reductive sound change: consonants in articulatively weak word-final and syllable-final positions are particularly vulnerable to assimilation, lenition, and elision processes. Such processes can be observed in synchronic allophony and in patterns of historical sound change (Bybee 2015b).

#### 1.1.2.3 Consonant clusters

Crosslinguistic patterns in consonant clusters are not limited to the tendency by which onset clusters tend to be larger and less restricted than coda clusters. It has long been observed that some cluster shapes are crosslinguistically more frequent than others. In fact, the phonological shape of clusters has been used, along with cluster size, as a diagnostic for syllable structure complexity. In the classification used by Maddieson (2013b), an onset cluster in which the second member is a liquid or a glide is considered less complex than one in which the second member is a nasal, fricative, or stop.

Studies investigating onset and coda clusters have revealed trends in the voicing, place, manner, and sonority of consonant sequences in tautosyllabic clusters. Greenberg (1978) was one of the first large-scale studies of this kind, investigating both the size and specific phonotactic patterns of onset and coda clusters in 104 languages. This study yielded dozens of implicational generalizations. For instance, the presence of a cluster in a language tends to imply the presence of smaller sequences within it; e.g. in English, the onset /spɪ/ as in *spring* implies the onsets /sp/ as in *spy* and /pɪ/ as in *pry*. Greenberg also derived universals regarding phonetic and phonological properties of consonants in sequence: for example, sonorant+voiced obstruent codas tend to imply the occurrence of sonorant+voiceless obstruent codas. Many crosslinguistic studies in a similar vein have followed from this work. In general, such studies tend to be limited in scope to biconsonantal onset patterns. VanDam (2004) is an exception, in that it explores tendencies in cluster size and composition in word-final codas of all sizes from 18 diverse languages. Some crosslinguistic studies of cluster patterns investigate voicing and manner implications regarding patterns of typologically rare structures, such as tautosyllabic sequences of obstruents (Morelli 1999; 2003;
Kreitman 2008). However, studies seeking to account for the crosslinguistically
most frequent biconsonantal onset patterns – a stop followed by a liquid or a
glide, such as /pl/ or /gw/ – are much more common in the literature (Clements
1990; Berent et al. 2008; 2011; Parker 2012; Vennemann 2012).

Many of the latter studies appeal to the notion of sonority in explaining pre-
dominant cluster patterns. In fact, it would seem that a sonority model of syllable
structure is more often used to explain cluster patterns than it is to explain the
onset-coda asymmetries discussed in the preceding section. In this line of reason-
ing, cluster patterns in which there is an increasing sonority slope towards the
nucleus (e.g. a /kl/ onset) are preferred to sonority plateaus (e.g. a /pk/ onset) or
reversals (e.g. a /lb/ onset). Implicational universals using various sonority-based
scales are often proposed to describe cluster inventory patterns, particularly the
C₂ patterns observed in onsets. For example, Morelli (1999) proposes a universal
by which the presence of stop-stop onsets in a language implies the presence of
stop-fricative onsets. Lennertz & Berent (2015) predict that stop-nasal onsets are
universally preferred to both stop-stop and stop-fricative onsets. Parker (2012)
proposes that the presence of biconsonantal onsets in a language implies the
presence of a liquid or glide as C₂. Vennemann (2012) argues that the diachronic
simplification of stop-initial biconsonantal onset inventories can be predicted by
a six-point sonority scale, in which onset patterns with C₂ furthest to the right
on the scale are lost first (7).

(7) glide < rhotic < lateral approximant < nasal < fricative < stop

There are exceptions to the above generalizations. In a study of 46 diverse
languages, it was found that stop-initial biconsonantal onset inventory patterns
diverged from the patterns predicted by the scale in (7) roughly one-third of the
time (Easterday & Napoleão de Souza 2015).

While a sonority account does capture strong trends in onset patterns, specif-
ically the crosslinguistic predominance of stop-glide and stop-liquid onsets, ac-
counts of syllable patterns appealing to sonority have been criticized for their
circularity. Though sonority has been proposed to be correlated with intensity
(Gordon 2002; Parker 2002), degree of constriction (Chin 1996; Cser 2003), and
manner of articulation (Parker 2011), it lacks a clear and crosslinguistically con-
sistent phonetic definition.<fnref n="3" /> Instead, the notion of sonority is largely derived
from phonotactic patterns, which are then explained in terms of sonority. Some
have argued that sonority is in fact an epiphenomenon arising from perceptually
motivated constraints, and that the only crosslinguistically consistent sonority

<footnote n="3">³In this sense, the notion of sonority is much like that of the syllable.</footnote>
1 *Syllables and syllable structure*

contrast is the one between obstruents and sonorants (Jany et al. 2007; Henke
et al. 2012). Ohala & Kawasaki-Fukumori (1997) reject the validity of sonority
altogether, arguing that it is both circular and too broadly defined to account
for the crosslinguistic rarity of sequences such as /pw/ and /dl/ and crosslinguis-
tic prevalence of sequences such as /sk/. They propose that prevalent onset pat-
terns reflect the high “survivability” of certain sequences, which in turn reflect
strong modulations – long trajectories in acoustic space – in amplitude, period-
icity, spectral shape, and fundamental frequency. In this view, sequences such
as /ba/ are more strongly modulated than sequences like /ske/ or /ble/, which in
turn are more strongly modulated than /pwe/, /pte/, and so on.

1.1.2.4 Nucleus patterns

Crosslinguistic tendencies have also been observed in the patterns of syllable
nuclei, which function as the auditory peaks of syllables. The prototypical syl-
lable nucleus consists of a vowel, and indeed there are many languages which
allow only vowels in nucleus position. However, there is a range of crosslinguis-
tic variability in the types of segments observed to occur as syllable nuclei. In
some languages, liquids or nasals may function as syllabic; e.g. Slovak *krv* [krv]
‘blood’ (Zec 2007: 186), and English *button* [bʌ?ŋ]. Such patterns are generally
well-accepted in the literature: liquids and nasals are vowel-like in some proper-
ties of their acoustic structure, so it is clear how such sounds might function as
auditory peaks of syllables. More rarely, obstruents are reported to occur as sylla-
ble nuclei: e.g. Puget Salish *sqwəlps* [sqwəl.pš] ‘cutthroat trout’ (Hoard 1978: 62),
Lendu *zżż* [zż.zż] ‘drink’ (Demolin 2002: 483), Tashlhiyt *tftktstt* [tf.tk.tst:] ‘you
sprained it (f)’ (Ridouane 2008: 332). Such cases are often considered problematic,
as they involve sounds which are not vowel-like in their acoustic properties and
which may even be voiceless. This view discounts the fact that there are many
kinds of obstruents with highly salient auditory properties, such as sibilant frica-
tives and ejective stops.

As is the case with consonant clusters, accounts for crosslinguistic patterns
of syllabic consonants often appeal to sonority as an explanatory mechanism,
with predominant patterns said to reflect a preference for high-sonority syllable
nuclei. Along similar lines of reasoning, nucleus patterns in languages are said
to follow a sonority-based implicational hierarchy by which the presence of a
given sound as a syllable nucleus in a language implies the presence of all more
sonorous types of sounds as syllable nuclei (Blevins 1995; Zec 2007). Thus a lan-
guage with syllabic nasals is predicted to also have syllabic liquids and vowels.
In this model, syllabic obstruents are dispreferred and predicted to be the rarest
kind of syllabic consonant.

A survey of syllabic consonant patterns in 182 diverse languages suggests that the sonority account for syllable nucleus patterns does not capture some important crosslinguistic trends (Bell 1978b). Of the 85 languages with syllabic consonants, 29 had syllabic liquids, 63 had syllabic nasals, and 34 had syllabic obstruents. The patterns considered in this survey include syllabic consonants arising through synchronic processes of vowel reduction, in addition to invariable syllabic consonant patterns, which are more often used to argue for a sonority basis for syllable nucleus patterns. However, the findings suggest that syllabic obstruents are not exceedingly rare, as often claimed, and may in fact be more common than syllabic liquids. A sonority-based implicational hierarchy fails to account for a robust minority of the patterns observed in the study: 10/34 (29%) of the languages with syllabic obstruents do not have syllabic liquids or nasals.

As illustrated by the Lendu and Tashlhiyt examples above, in languages with
syllabic obstruents, entire words or phrases without vowels may occur. There are
many studies which seek to tackle the problem that such languages pose to mod-
els of the syllable (e.g. Bagemihl 1991 for Nuxalk, Coleman 2001 for Tashlhiyt).
This is despite the fact that words without vowels are easily pronounceable by
fluent speakers and may be relatively frequent in the languages in which they oc-
cur: for instance, Ridouane (2008: 328f) reports that in Tashlhiyt, 7.9% of syntactic
words in running text are composed entirely of voiceless obstruents.

1.1.2.5 Syllable structure and morphology

It has long been understood that morphological patterns can play an important
role in syllable structure complexity. There are many languages in which the
largest tautosyllabic consonant clusters arise through inflection or other morpho-
logical processes, for example in the coda /kst-s/ in English *texts*. On the basis
of such observations, morphologically complex clusters have often been viewed
with suspicion in theoretical treatments of the syllable. Comments casting doubt
on their status as valid phonological structures can be found throughout the lit-
erature examining syllable patterns from both formal theoretical and descriptive
typological perspectives: for example, many crosslinguistic studies of consonant
clusters, such as Greenberg (1978) and others mentioned above, explicitly exclude
morphologically complex clusters from their analyses.

When morphologically derived syllable structures are explicitly addressed in
empirical studies of cluster patterns, it tends to be in order to examine how they
differ from unambiguously phonological (morpheme-internal) clusters in aspects
## 1 Syllables and syllable structure

of their composition, processing, and acquisition. A recent research program has studied patterns of phonotactic (morpheme-internal) and morphonotactic (morphologically complex) consonant clusters (Dressler & Dziubalska-Kołaczyk 2006). Several studies in this vein have approached the issue by analyzing properties of cluster inventories, finding that morphologically complex clusters are typically larger and more complex (in terms of sonority or alternative properties such as Net Auditory Distance) than those which occur within morphemes (Dressler & Dziubalska-Kołaczyk 2006; Orzechowska 2012).

Studies of L1 cluster acquisition have revealed earlier production and lower reduction rates for morphologically complex clusters than for morpheme-internal clusters, suggesting that the extra grammatical-semantic function carried by these structures may work in favor of their stability and maintenance, even if the shapes themselves are “dispreferred” (Kamandulytė 2006; Zydorowicz 2010). Morphologically complex clusters with phonotactically dispreferred patterns have in fact been proposed to facilitate parsing in speech perception, since they more reliably signal the morphological compositionality of words and thus feed back into the productivity of those morphemes (Hay & Baayen 2003; Dressler et al. 2010).

### 1.1.3 Theoretical models and crosslinguistic patterns of syllable structure

The purpose of models of linguistic structure is to provide a framework and context within which to situate, explain, and make predictions about observed language patterns. As a result, models are often heavily influenced by frequent or well-documented crosslinguistic trends. Theoretical models of the syllable reflect many of the crosslinguistic patterns described above.

Many formalist models of the syllable reflect crosslinguistic trends which privilege CV over other patterns. The model of syllable structure proposed in Government Phonology (Kaye et al. 1990) follows in the tradition of generative syntax, in that every element in phonological structure is governed by some other element in a hierarchical fashion and an element may govern at most two constituents. In this model, the syllable element governs the onset and the rime. The rime branches into a nucleus and an optional simple coda. Depending upon the formulation of the model, the onset may branch into two consonants. A more extreme model following from this tradition, the Strict CV approach, posits only onset and nucleus constituents (Lowenstamm 1996; Scheer 2004). Because of the crosslinguistic tendency towards simple or biconsonantal onsets and simple or absent codas, these approaches are sufficient for describing syllable patterns in many languages. Where patterns do not fit into the proposed frame, empty nuclei
are posited in order to preserve the underlying structure. Thus onset clusters are assumed to have intervening empty nuclei between the consonants, and simple codas are assumed to be followed by empty nuclei.

Common crosslinguistic cluster patterns such as /s/+stop onsets and stop+/s/ codas have been considered problematic in some frameworks, as they represent sonority plateaus or reversals. In order to deal with such issues, it has been proposed that the /s/ in such patterns is not a part of the core syllable, but functions as an extrasyllabic appendix to it (Vaux & Wolfe 2009; Duanmu 2011). Appendices and extrasyllabic elements are often posited for peripheral members of clusters which belong to separate morphemes. Interestingly, this approach may result in some of the most frequent clusters in a language (e.g. clusters coming about through inflectional markers) being set apart from morphologically simple ones in their phonological representation.

In Optimality Theory, syllable patterns are not governed by a rigid model, but are motivated by universal constraints whose relative importance, or ranking, is determined on a language-specific basis (Prince & Smolensky 1993). In this framework, surface phonetic forms are those which reflect the best possible output, that is, the fewest violations with respect to the constraint ranking. Crosslinguistic variation in syllable patterns is explained in terms of different rankings of these violable constraints. Many of the constraints reflect common crosslinguistic patterns, e.g. ONSET, in which a violation mark is assigned to a syllable without an onset, and *NUCLEUS/X, in which a violation mark is assigned to syllable nuclei belonging to some sonority class X (e.g. obstruents; McCarthy 2008).

In the Articulatory Phonology framework, researchers have developed a coupled oscillator model of syllable structure which is heavily influenced by findings in the motor control literature (Nam & Saltzman 2003; Goldstein et al. 2006; Nam et al. 2009). In this model, speech gestures are associated with planning routines, or oscillators, which activate the production of that gesture in speech. These oscillators are coupled to one another in one of two stable modes – in-phase or anti-phase – which determine the relative timing of the production of gestures. Gestures coupled in-phase are initiated synchronously, while gestures coupled anti-phase are initiated sequentially. These coupling phases are proposed to correspond to instrumentally established timing relationships observed in the syllable, in which onset gestures are produced synchronously with those of the vowel but coda gestures are timed sequentially after those of the vowel. This model provides a motor control basis for the privileged status of CV in language acquisition and frequency distributions, as well as the distinct timing patterns associated with onsets, codas, and clusters in each of those positions.
## 1.2 Highly complex syllable structure: Typological outlier, theoretical problem

Having discussed some of the predominant crosslinguistic trends in syllable patterns, as well as frequent accounts for them, we return to the patterns presented in at the beginning of this chapter (8–12)

(8) Yakima Sahaptin (Sahaptin; USA)
*ksksa*

‘elephant ear (mushroom)’
(Hargus & Beavert 2006: 29)

(9) Georgian (Kartvelian; Georgia)
*brts’χ’ali*

‘claw’ (Butskhrikidze 2002: 204)

(10) Tashlhiyt (Afro-Asiatic; Morocco)
*ts:kftftst:*

t-s:-kʃf-t=st:

‘you dried it (f)’ (Ridouane 2008: 332)

(11) Tehuelche (Chonan; Argentina)
*ktʃaʔpʃkn*

k-tʃaʔʃp-ʃ-k’n

REFL-wash-PS-REALIS

‘it is being washed’ (Fernández Garay & Hernández 2006: 13)

(12) Itelmen (Chukotko-Kamchatkan; Russia)
*kttxuniŋeʔn*

klt-txuni-ŋeʔn

‘very dark’

(Georg & Volodin 1999: 55)

In the context of the issues previously discussed, highly complex syllable patterns may be considered problematic in all respects.

The syllable patterns in (8–12) are, first of all, extremely large in comparison to the universally privileged CV shape. This fact has been pointed to explicitly in the literature as a reason to consider such patterns invalid: Kaye et al. (1990: 195), in a discussion of syllable patterns with four-consonant codas in Nez Perce, write
## 1.2 Highly complex syllable structure: Typological outlier, theoretical problem

that “[t]he sheer length of such sequences makes one doubtful of their status as syllable constituents of one and the same syllable.” The example in (11) is chosen to illustrate that word-final consonant sequences may be much longer than word-initial sequences in Tehuelche, which goes against predominant crosslinguistic trends. Furthermore, the word-initial patterns in (8) and (12) consist entirely of obstruents, which should be strongly dispreferred according to both sonority models (e.g. Clements 1990) and acoustic-perceptual models (Ohala & Kawasaki-Fukumori 1997) of syllable structure. The word without vowels in (10) is typologically rare and implies syllabic obstruents, which are crosslinguistically “dispreferred.” The patterns in (10–12) are further regarded as dubious because their clusters are morphologically complex and therefore perhaps not valid phonological structures. All of the patterns above, besides being typologically rare, are theoretically marginalized in that they represent the opposite of the predominant crosslinguistic patterns which models of the syllable seek to capture and describe.

When highly complex syllable patterns are explicitly treated in the literature, it tends to be with the purpose of making their patterns fit into prevailing theoretical models. An example of this is Bagemihl’s (1991) analysis of Nuxalk syllable structure. On the basis of reduplication data, Bagemihl analyzes the language as having “relatively ordinary” CRVVC syllable structure,<fnref n="4" /> in which vowels, liquids, and nasals may function as V nuclei. Segments that do not fit into that syllable frame remain phonologically unsyllabified. Thus a word without sonorants – like łχʷtłcxʷ ‘you spat on me’ – while being fully and fluently pronounceable by speakers, is analyzed as entirely unsyllabified at the phonological level. Similarly, a strict CV approach has been used to account for “ghost vowels” – vowels which alternate with zero – in Mohawk and Polish, both of which have highly complex syllable patterns (Rowicka 1999). However, this has the effect of positing long sequences of simple onsets followed by empty nuclei for the large consonant clusters which occur in those languages, as in Mohawk *khninus* ‘I buy’ or Polish źdźbło (/żdžbwo/) ‘blade of grass’. These novel phonological analyses are based upon careful consideration of both language-specific patterns and theoretical implications. However, such treatments of highly complex syllable structure have the effect of theoretically “normalizing” these rare syllable patterns: not by taking them at face value as corresponding to possible cognitive representations of language, but by arguing away their unusual properties until they more closely resemble familiar patterns.

More problematic are approaches which treat highly complex syllable structure as anomalous or exotic. Such attitudes, as reflected by assumptions about

<footnote n="4">⁴Here R stands for “resonant,” corresponding to a sonorant consonant.</footnote>
# 1 Syllables and syllable structure

what constitutes possible syllable length and constituency (cf. the quote by Kaye and colleagues above), make it all too easy for researchers to dismiss such patterns as improbable or regard them as statistical aberrations from an established norm. This seems to be more often the case when highly complex syllable patterns occur in underdescribed non-Eurasian languages. It sets a worrisome precedent when the patterns of minority, indigenous, and endangered languages are dismissed in this way. This reinforces a European bias and serves to further marginalize and exoticize languages which are already historically underrepresented in our discipline.

Related to this point is the fact that much of the research in linguistics, including syllable structure typology, is influenced by an overrepresentation of data from European languages. A survey of crosslinguistic studies of consonant cluster patterns, for example, revealed an Indo-European bias which ranged from 34% (Morelli 1999) to 79% (Vennemann 2012) of the languages in those samples (Easterday & Napoleão de Souza 2015). In an investigation of the conformity of plosive-initial biconsonantal onset inventories to the predictions of a sonority-based implicational hierarchy in 46 diverse languages, only five of which were Indo-European, it was found that nearly one-third of the languages had patterns diverging from these predictions (Ibid.). None of the diverging patterns were found in Indo-European languages, and nearly all were from regions or families which tend to be underrepresented in linguistic research. This suggests that some of the reported norms of syllable structure typology may be heavily biased towards what has been observed in Indo-European and other well-represented families.

Other issues which often go unexplored in accounts for crosslinguistic patterns of syllable structure are the influence of processes of language change and the relationship between syllable patterns and other elements of the phonology and the grammar. These issues are of special importance for typologically rare patterns, such as highly complex syllable structure, as they provide a natural explanation for the emergence and maintenance of these purportedly dispreferred patterns. In the following section I briefly discuss some lines of research which situate the issue of syllable structure complexity within holistic typologies of language by relating it to other phonological and grammatical properties.
# 1.3 Syllable structure complexity: Accounts and correlations

## 1.3.1 Speech rhythm typologies

A long line of research in linguistics has sought to characterize and measure
rhythmic properties of language which are perceptually and psychologically sa-
lient to speakers and play an important role in language acquisition (Cutler &
Mehler 1993). The typology proposed by Pike (1945) distinguished two speech
rhythm types: stress-timed languages and syllable-timed languages, with En-
glish being a prototypical example of the former and Spanish being a prototyp-
ical example of the latter. This typology was later expanded to include a third
category of mora timing, for which Japanese is a prototypical example. In its
initial formulation, it was postulated that the rhythmic properties of these lan-
guage types reflect equal timing intervals between those units: between stresses
for stress-timed languages, syllables for syllable-timed languages, and morae for
mora-timed languages. This “isochrony hypothesis” was eventually instrumen-
tally disconfirmed (Roach 1982). Speech rhythm typologies subsequently shifted
their focus to phonological holism, relating rhythm types to a confluence of fac-
tors involving syllable structure, vowel reduction, vowel length contrasts, and
properties of stress placement (Roach 1982; Dauer 1983). In this typology, simple
syllable structure is proposed to occur with syllable timing, and complex sylla-
ble structure with stress timing. Reduction of vowels in unstressed syllables and
variation in lexical stress patterns are additionally proposed to occur with com-
plex syllable structure in stress-timed languages (Auer 1993). The proposed co-
occurrences are not meant to be categorical, and as will be discussed in Chapter 5,
may reflect the patterns of European languages specifically (Schiering 2007).

Proposed measurements of the acoustic properties of speech rhythm have
been suggested to relate directly to syllable structure. Metrics developed by Ra-
mus et al. (1999) correspond to the proportion of vocalic intervals and standard
deviation of consonantal intervals in speech. In languages with high syllable com-
plexity, a greater standard deviation of consonant intervals and a lower propor-
tion of vocalic intervals is expected, corresponding to both the greater variation
in syllable types and the higher probability of consonant sequences in running
speech in such languages. When languages are plotted according to these metrics,
they fall into groups which largely correspond to traditional rhythm categories
of stress timing and syllable timing (but see Wiget et al. 2010 for criticism of this
approach). When these metrics were calculated in a crosslinguistically diverse
sample of languages representing various degrees of syllable structure complex-
## 1 Syllables and syllable structure

ity and other phonological properties, it was found that syllable structure complexity is indeed significantly correlated with the expected indices ($p < 0.005$), lending empirical validation to the suggested relationship (Easterday et al. 2011). However, the direction of causality behind the relationship is unclear from these findings: while syllable structure contributes heavily to the acoustic-perceptual properties of speech rhythm, it is not clear whether syllable structure necessarily causes or constitutes stress timing. It may instead be that syllable structure is affected by and comes about through the other prosodic and phonological features associated with stress timing, such as vowel reduction.

### 1.3.2 Other holistic typologies

Some holistic typologies which consider syllable complexity attempt to relate the phonology, morphology, syntax, and discourse properties of language to one another. An example of one such ambitious typology is that proposed in various forms by Vladimir Skalička from 1958 to 1979 (Plank 1998). Skalička (1979) proposed five ideal types which languages are supposed to approximate, if not attain: polysynthesis (an idiosyncratic use of the term that does not correspond to modern usage), agglutination, flection, introflection, and isolation. The many phonological and grammatical properties proposed to co-occur in each of these types were meant to be mutually supportive. In two of the types – agglutination and introflection – complex consonant clusters are said to co-occur with rich consonant systems and a high degree of verbal inflection. Other properties of these very specifically-defined classes include a prevalence of vowel harmony and looser fusion between gramemes and the stem in the agglutination type, and root-internal marking in the introflection type. Like many proposed holistic typologies, Skalička's is largely impressionistic and not based in extensive empirical evidence.

A series of empirical studies by Gertraud Fenk-Oczlon and August Fenk have sought to establish correlations between certain grammatical and discourse properties of language and syllable structure specifically. Fenk & Fenk-Oczlon (1993) tested Menzerath's Law (paraphrased as "the bigger the whole, the smaller the parts") and found a significant negative linear correlation between the number of syllables per word and the number of phonemes per syllable, a measure roughly analogous to syllable complexity. Working from the observation that words have more syllables in agglutinating languages, Fenk-Oczlon & Fenk (2005) established a correspondence between complex syllable structure and a tendency towards prepositions and a low number of grammatical cases on the one hand and simple syllable structure and a tendency to postpositions and a high number of
cases on the other. Finally, Fenk-Oczlon & Fenk (2008) found that high phono-
logical complexity (determined by the number of distinct monosyllables in a lan-
guage) was correlated with low morphological complexity and high semantic
complexity (i.e. high degrees of homonymy and polysemy), as well as rigid word
order and idiomatic speech. They explain these results in terms of complexity
trade-offs which balance the different subsystems of language.

The results of Shosted (2006) conflict with those of Fenk-Oczlon & Fenk. This empirical study attempts to test the negative correlation hypothesis, which holds that if one component of language is simplified, then another must be elaborated. Specifically, Shosted considers correlations between syllable structure and inflec- tional synthesis of the verb in a diversified sample of 32 languages. He finds a slightly positive but statistically insignificant correlation between complexity in the two measures. Shosted's measure of phonological complexity is not based on measurements of maximal syllable complexity, but instead on the potential num- ber of distinct syllables allowed in each language, a figure which is calculated from the number of phonemic contrasts, canonical syllable patterns, and various phonotactic constraints reported for each language.

1.3.3 Consonantal and vocalic languages

In phonological descriptions and general typological studies, the terms *consonan-
tal* and *vocalic* are sometimes used to describe the holistic phonological character
of languages (13–18).

(13) “In this group, we find on the one hand highly consonantal languages like Kabardian and other Northwest Caucasian languages [...], and on the other hand vocalic languages with long morphemes, for example Indonesian and related languages [...]”<fnref n="5" /> (Skalička 1979: 309)

(14) “Syntagmatically, all (indigenous) Caucasian idioms can be called ‘consonant-type languages,’ with more consonants in a speech sequence than vowels [...] The same term (‘consonantal languages’) can be applied to them paradigmatically as well, all Caucasian languages being notorious for the richness of their consonantal inventories, versus restricted or very restricted vowel systems.” (Chirikba 2008: 43)

(15) “[Polish] can be described as a ‘consonantal’ language, in two respects: (a) it has a rich system of consonant phonemes [...] and (b) it allows heavy consonant clusters ...” (Jassem 2003: 103)

<footnote n="5">⁵Translation TZ.</footnote>
## 1 Syllables and syllable structure

(16) “Slovak is a more consonantal language than German (27 vs. 21) ...”
(Dressler et al. 2015: 56)

(17) “Since Italian is clearly a less consonantal language than English ...”
(Dressler & Dziubalska-Kołaczyk 2006: 263)

(18) “Tashlhiyt can be described as a ‘consonantal language.’ [...] What makes Tashlhiyt a ‘consonantal language’ *par excellence* is the existence of words composed of consonants only ...” (Ridouane 2014: 216)

The use of these terms is especially prevalent in Slavic and Caucasian lin-
guistics. In some of those contexts, the terms may refer directly to a holistic
phonological typology of Slavic languages developed by Isačenko (1939). In that
work, “consonantal languages” are defined as having complex syllable structure,
a higher proportion of consonants in the phoneme inventory, the presence of cer-
tain consonant contrasts such as secondary palatalization, and fixed or lexically-
determined stress. By comparison, “vocalic languages” have simpler syllable
structure, lower proportions of consonants in the phoneme inventory, fewer
consonant place contrasts, and pitch accent or “musical intonation.” Several of
the descriptions above also make reference to the overall size of the consonant
phoneme inventory and sequences of consonants in word patterns or the speech
stream. The relationship between syllable structure complexity and consonant
phoneme inventory size suggested above is an empirically established one: as
will be discussed further in Chapter 4, Maddieson (2013b) found a weak but highly
significant positive relationship between these features in a set of 484 languages.
These findings suggest that the use of the terms consonantal and vocalic is at
least to some extent grounded in observable crosslinguistic patterns.

Impressionistic descriptions of the phonetic characteristics of languages with
highly complex syllable structure are evocative of descriptions of consonantal
languages. I present some of these below (19–22).

(19) Kabardian (*Abkhaz-Adyge*; Russia, Turkey)
“On the whole, the vowels have comparatively little prominence, in
comparison with the consonants.” (Kuipers 1960: 24)

"[T]he typical Kabardian pronunciation is imitated most easily if one pronounces the word without vowels other than *a* and with a stress immediately after the initial consonant: the result will show the predominance of consonants over vowels that is typical of Kabardian speech, and the syllabic peaks will be determined automatically by the stress and by the sonority of the sounds in the sequence." (Kuipers 1960: 43)
(20) Camsá (*isolate*; Colombia)

“Words are pronounced rapidly with vowels practically eliminated word medially. A degree of emphasis is placed on the vowel of the first syllable with the following syllables squeezed together before the stressed syllable.” (Howard 1967: 86–87)

(21) Thompson (*Salishan*; Canada)

“Basic vowel adjustments reflect the general tendency of the language to drop vowels from unstressed syllables wherever possible and to convert to /ə/ those vowels that are not dropped. In rapid speech, this tendency is nearly fully realized, so that few tense vowels are heard outside of stressed syllables.” (Thompson & Thompson 1992: 31)

(22) Itelmen (*Chukotko-Kamchatkan*; Russia)

“I suppose it is little exaggeration to say that in the [Itelmen] language there are no vowels, or, perhaps, their vowels are so obscure that it is hardly possible to translate them to European [equivalents].”<fnref n="6" /> (Volodin 1976: 40–41; quoting V. N. Tyushov)

These vivid descriptions of fluent speech in languages with highly complex syllable structure are surely influenced by the stark differences between these phonetic patterns and those of the languages spoken natively by the researchers. However, taken along with observations regarding consonantal languages, as well as findings in the speech rhythm and holistic typology literature, they also suggest a path forward for investigating highly complex syllable structure as a coherent linguistic type characterized by an array of phonetic and phonological features.

## 1.4 The current study

The current study is a crosslinguistic investigation of highly complex syllable patterns, their properties, their associations with other linguistic features, and their emergence over time. The two aims of the study are (i) to establish whether languages with highly complex syllable structure constitute a linguistic type, in the sense denoted by the holistic typologies described above, and (ii) to identify possible diachronic paths and natural mechanisms by which these patterns come about in the history of a language. A secondary goal is to “de-exoticize” these rare syllable patterns by considering them at face value as natural language structures rather than as typological and theoretical outliers.

<footnote n="6">⁶Translation SME.</footnote>
## 1.4.1 Research questions

The two broad research questions follow directly from the aims of the study listed above. The first is given in (23).

(23) Do languages with highly complex syllable structure share other phonetic and phonological characteristics such that this group can be classified as a linguistic type?

This research focus seeks to establish whether highly complex syllable structure is a linguistic type characterized by a convergence of associated phonetic and phonological properties. The properties to be considered follow in part from the findings and proposals in the holistic typologies described above. These include properties of syllable structure, phoneme inventories, suprasegmental patterns, and processes of vowel reduction and consonant allophony (see the following section for a detailed list of considerations). The specific hypotheses regarding the associations between syllable complexity and these properties will be presented with each analysis in upcoming chapters.

While the term “linguistic type” is used in the formulation of (23), this is not meant in the sense that I expect the results of the analyses to set these languages apart from others in a strict categorical way. As with the holistic language typologies discussed above, it is more likely that phonetic and phonological properties will show a tendency to cluster together. If such expectations are borne out in the analyses, they may aid in addressing the second research question:

(24) How does highly complex syllable structure develop over time?

As will become apparent in the following chapters, capturing the development of highly complex syllable structure in real time is not a straightforward endeavor: syllable patterns seem to be remarkably stable and persistent over time and within language families (Napoleão de Souza 2017). Where synchronic and historical accounts based on direct evidence are available, these are useful in approaching the research question in (24). Additionally, methods of diachronic typology can be used. This will be discussed further below.

## 1.4.2 Proposed analyses and framework

The research questions outlined above are investigated in a sample of 100 languages representing four different categories of syllable complexity and selected to maximize genealogical and geographic diversity. The size and construction of the sample is designed to allow for a maximally systematic investigation of both
research questions (see Chapter 2 for further detail). For practical reasons, the
scope of the book is largely limited to the analysis of phonological and phonetic
properties, but in a few cases morphological factors are additionally considered.
The analyses are grouped into five coherent studies, each corresponding to a
chapter. These are listed below.

(25) Phonological and phonetic properties considered

Syllable patterns (Chapter 3)

- Size, location, phonological shape, and morphological complexity of maximal clusters

- Nucleus patterns, including syllabic consonants

- Morphological patterns of syllabic consonants

- Relative prominence of highly complex syllable patterns within languages

- Phonetic properties of large clusters

Segmental inventories (Chapter 4)

- Consonant phoneme inventory size

- Consonant articulations present

- Vocalic nucleus inventory size

- Vocalic contrasts present

Suprasegmental properties (Chapter 5)

- Presence of tone and word stress

- Predictability of word stress placement

- Phonological asymmetries between stressed and unstressed syllables

- Phonetic processes conditioned by stress

- Phonetic correlates of stress

Vowel reduction (Chapter 6)

- Presence and prevalence of vowel reduction

- Affected vowels

- Conditioning environments

- Outcomes of vowel reduction and effects on syllable patterns

Consonant allophony (Chapter 7)

- Presence of specific types of assimilation, lenition, and fortition

- Conditioning environments

The results of these analyses are used to directly address the research question
regarding the establishment of languages with highly complex syllable structure
as a linguistic type. While one goal is to quantify associations between syllable
# 1 Syllables and syllable structure

structure complexity and specific linguistic features, qualitative patterns in the data will also be considered in this endeavor.

Additionally, the results will be used to inform diachronic paths by which highly complex syllable patterns develop, addressing the second research question. Specifically, the methods of diachronic typology – the use of “synchronic variation to dynamicize a typology” (Croft 2003: 272) – are used. In this method, diachronic processes and paths are inferred, with careful consideration of attested processes and known directionality of language change, from synchronic patterns. This method is especially valuable in the current study, as many of the languages with highly complex syllable structure have little historical documentation. Strong tendencies in the phonetic and phonological properties of languages with highly complex syllable patterns may point to processes of language change which tend to precede, accompany, or follow the development of these structures, hinting at steps in the historical evolution of this linguistic type.

Like most typological studies, the analyses in this book rely on written reference materials and are therefore based on standard features of structural linguistic analysis, such as phoneme inventories and phonological processes. However, the interpretations of patterns are informed by a theoretical framework which views the patterns of organization within language as dynamic, interactive, and emergent from usage (Beckner et al. 2009; Bybee 2001; 2010).

While I do not have a finely articulated hypothesis regarding the diachronic development of highly complex syllable structure, I enter into these studies with a few ideas and assumptions regarding this issue. Following findings in the speech rhythm literature, I expect that vowel reduction, especially processes resulting in vowel deletion or the development of syllabic consonants, will be highly relevant in the development of these patterns. Since vowel reduction is often associated with unstressed syllables, it is also expected that stress will play an important role. These phenomena may be accompanied by particular processes of consonant allophony, such as palatalization, which over time have the effect of increasing consonant phoneme inventory sizes.

Finally, an important aspect of syllable structure development that can be only briefly considered here is the role of morphology. Based upon observations of morphologically complex clusters in languages with highly complex syllable structure, as well as associations posited between syllable complexity and morphological patterns in the literature, I expect that the development of these syllable patterns is often facilitated by a high degree of inflectional or derivational morphology in a language. In a speculative scenario, it is easy to imagine highly complex syllable patterns developing in a highly inflectional affixing language in which stress falls on the root or stem and eventually has segmental effects which
include the reduction and eventual deletion of unstressed vowels. This may result
in long heteromorphemic consonant sequences at word boundaries. The plausi-
bility of the various aspects of such a scenario will be explored in subsequent
chapters.
<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>
# 2 Language sample

This chapter describes the language sample used in the study. In §2.1 I discuss general issues of language sampling and specific considerations for sampling in the current study. In §2.2 I examine a previous typology of syllable structure complexity and propose a definition for a category of Highly Complex syllable structure. In §2.3 I discuss the procedure underlying the construction of the language sample. In §2.4 I present the language sample and describe its areal, genealogical, and sociolinguistic features. In §2.5 I briefly discuss the general method of data collection.

## 2.1 Language sampling

Crosslinguistic comparison is “the fundamental characteristic of typology” (Croft 2003: 6). In order to make general statements about some linguistic property such as syllable complexity, it is necessary to examine the properties of and variation within that feature in a wide variety of languages. Today, linguists have access to a greater array of grammatical descriptions, corpora, and audiovisual materials than ever before. However, for many languages, reference materials are either not available or not descriptive enough for inclusion in most typological studies. Therefore researchers must rely on samples much smaller than the set of the 7,097 languages known to exist today (Simons & Fennig 2018). Because typology is a data-driven science, the issue of sampling – that is, determining which languages will serve as data sources for addressing the question(s) at hand – is critical in any study. The relative merits of different sampling techniques and methods of controlling for various types of bias have often been the subject of debate in the field (see Bakker 2011 for an overview of the relevant literature).

Before introducing the sample used in the current study, I discuss some of the known sources of bias in typological work. I also discuss the potential effect of these factors on investigating issues of syllable structure or phonology more generally.
### 2.1.1 Common sources of bias in language sampling

The three most commonly discussed sources of bias in language sampling are *genealogical*, *areal*, and *bibliographic* bias (Bakker 2011).

A typological study may suffer from *genealogical bias* if it includes data from related languages. This presents a potential confound in the interpretation of results, because similar patterns in related languages may not be independent of one another, but instead inherited from a common ancestor. Of all the sources of bias in language sampling, genealogical bias is perhaps the most discussed, and the one most explicitly controlled for. Strategies for minimizing this kind of bias include systematic stratification of the language sample itself at a particular time depth or level of genealogical classification (Bell 1978a; Maddieson 1984; Dryer 1989), or postponement of sampling to post-hoc analysis, when the independence of the feature(s) under study can be determined at each taxonomic level within a language family (Bickel 2008). In practice, though, most typological studies are based on small convenience samples which are heavily skewed towards large, well-known, and well-described language families. Language isolates, which account for up to one-third of known language families (Campbell 2016), and smaller, lesser-known language families often go altogether unrepresented.

Another bias which is often considered in constructing language samples is *areal bias*, in which languages spoken in the same geographical and/or cultural area may have influenced one another through prolonged contact. The literature has long noted the existence of linguistic areas, in which languages from more than one family share sets of traits in common with each other but not with other related languages spoken outside the area (Aikhenvald & Dixon 2001b; Chirikba 2008). Attempts to minimize such bias include consideration of cultural areas in addition to genealogical affiliations in constructing a language sample, with the ideal sample containing no two languages from the same family or area (Perkins 1985). But while traditional linguistic areas are relatively small and geographically delimited (e.g. the Balkan Sprachbund), studies of individual features have revealed even larger areas of linguistic convergence; e.g. North America has a higher prevalence of head-marking agreement strategies as compared to the rest of the world (Dryer 1989). To minimize the effects of areal bias, Dryer proposes a method by which a language sample may be divided into five large continental areas (later refined to six, Dryer 1992), which can be shown to be independent of one another along at least some typological measures.

As many as two-thirds of spoken languages do not have reference materials which are thorough enough to be consulted in any but the most basic of typologi-
cal surveys (Bakker 2011: 106). As a result, virtually every language sample suffers from severe *bibliographic bias*. The best documented languages in the world tend to correspond to those which, for whatever historical reason, have the greatest political, social, and economic power and wide geographic spread (e.g. English, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Arabic). Thus we find that bibliographic bias is genealogically and areally skewed, with small, less powerful language families and remote regions particularly underrepresented. The least documented language families in the world, for example, tend to be found in lowland New Guinea and parts of the Amazon region (Hammarström 2010). Similar to, or perhaps a subset of, bibliographic bias is what Moreno Cabrera describes as the *written language bias*. Most of the world's languages do not have a written or standard form, and references for such languages often describe a specific dialect or idelect. When languages do have a written or standard form, reference materials often describe that form. A result of this is that typological studies often compare data from "highly heterogeneous sources": standardized, highly formal registers for written languages, and unstandardized, informal registers of idelects for unwritten languages (Moreno Cabrera 2008: 118).

All three of the sources of bias described above – genealogical, areal, and bibliographic bias – may complicate typological studies of syllable structure. As discussed in the introduction, the prevalence of particular consonant cluster patterns in Indo-European languages may skew general perceptions regarding the universality of these patterns. There are also clear areal asymmetries in the global distribution of syllable structure complexity. Languages with Simple syllable structure tend to be spoken near the equator (Maddieson 2013b). Complex syllable structure has been described as a prominent areal feature of specific regions such as the Caucasus (Chirikba 2008) and the Pacific Northwest (Thompson & Kinkade 1990), though there is evidence that maximal syllable structure is more strongly associated with genealogical affiliation even within these linguistic areas (Napoleão de Souza 2017). Insofar as the global distribution of syllable structure complexity is genealogically and areally skewed, the issue of bibliographic bias is relevant. For example, underdocumented areas such as South America and New Guinea are known to have a higher than average proportion of languages with canonical (C)V syllable structure (Maddieson 2013b).
### 2.1.2 Other factors which may influence phonological structure and syllable complexity

#### 2.1.2.1 Population

Speaker population may have an effect on language structure. It has been proposed that rare or linguistically marked structures, such as Object-initial basic word orders, are more likely to arise and persist in small speech communities (Nettle 1999a). Lingua francas which have wide areal spreads and large speaker populations with many second-language speakers may be more vulnerable to simplificatory pressures than languages whose use is limited to small, close-knit communities (Nettle 1999b; Lupyan & Dale 2010). These proposals suggest that simpler syllable structures may be found in languages with large speaker populations or in situations of heavy language contact. Recent research on emergent phonology in creoles does not necessarily support the latter claim: despite many claims to the contrary, a broad range of complex syllable patterns may occur in these languages (Schramm 2014). Concerning other phonological properties, a positive correlation between phoneme inventory size and speaker population has been noted (Hay & Bauer 2007). Proposed motivations for this pattern, including founder effects analogous to those found in genetics (Atkinson 2011), are controversial (Bybee 2011; Maddieson et al. 2011; Hunley et al. 2012, inter alia).

#### 2.1.2.2 Language endangerment

Today, language diversity is in precipitous decline due to rapid social, economic, and environmental changes which have global reach. It has been projected that 84% or more of today's languages may be lost within the next century (Nettle 1999b: 113–114). There is evidence that language vitality status may influence linguistic structure itself. Languages which are obsolescing (dying) – currently about 13% of all living languages (Simons & Fennig 2018) – are known to undergo special kinds of structural change (see Romaine 2010 for a review of research on the structural effects of language obsolescence). In the phonological systems of obsolescing languages, it is common for distinctive contrasts to be leveled and for the regularity of phonological processes to break down. Attested effects of obsolescence on syllable structure include reduction and simplification of syllable margins (Cook 1989, for obsolescing dialects of Chipewyan and Sarcee) and the deletion of entire unstressed syllables in certain word positions (Mithun 1989, for Oklahoma Cayuga).
### 2.1.2.3 Ecological factors

There is a growing body of work investigating the effect of ecological factors on language structure. Recent studies have explored the hypothesis that the sound systems of human languages may be adapted to features of the natural environment such as elevation, ambient temperature, density of vegetation, and ambient dessication (Everett 2013; Maddieson & Coupé 2015; Everett et al. 2016; Everett 2017). Syllable structure has been a subject of particular focus in this research paradigm. A positive correlation between warm climates and the frequency of CV shapes in languages has been proposed to reflect the communication needs of an outdoor lifestyle, in which more sonorous elements of the speech signal may overcome environmental noise and large distances between speakers (Munroe et al. 1996; Fought et al. 2004). Similarly, a negative correlation between density of vegetation and complex syllable structures may reflect the poor transmission qualities of higher frequency sounds (certain consonants and consonant clusters) in densely forested environments (Maddieson & Coupé 2015).

### 2.1.3 Specific considerations in the current study

Bakker (2011: 106) states that “the construction of a sample should follow the precise formulation of the research questions one would like to answer on the basis of it”. Recall the two broad research questions motivating this study, presented in (1-2):

(1) Do languages with highly complex syllable structure share other phonetic and phonological characteristics such that this group can be classified as a linguistic type?

(2) How does highly complex syllable structure develop over time?

These research questions, and their more specific formulations laid out in Chapter 1, necessitate a carefully constructed language sample. The first seeks to determine whether there are structural features correlated with highly complex syllable structure such that this phenomenon can be considered characteristic of a language type. For the purposes of gaining a thorough understanding of a language type, genealogical and areal diversity are important considerations in the construction of the sample. However, because this study does not aim to quantify the range or overall distribution of highly complex syllable structure, it is not necessary that the sample be genealogically *balanced* in a systematic way. If quantitative analysis reveals crosslinguistically robust patterns of features correlated with syllable structure complexity, these can inform specific predictions
about the evolution of highly complex syllable structure, addressing the second research question. Thus it may actually prove useful to have pairs of related languages with different syllable structure complexity in the sample. The effectiveness of the predictions can then be tested and qualitatively evaluated within these pairs, in which the structures are known to derive from the same origin at some point in the past.

In order to test for correlations between syllable structure complexity and other structural features, typological bias (Comrie 1989: 12) must be built into the sample. That is, the languages of the sample must be deliberately chosen on the basis of their syllable patterns, so that features of languages with different syllable structure complexity may be compared against one another in a principled way to determine whether the hypothesized correlations exist and are crosslinguistically robust. An important question, then, is how syllable structure complexity is defined in the current study.

## 2.2 Defining the categories of syllable structure complexity

Definitions of syllable structure complexity typically consider the size and phonological structure of the onset and coda.<fnref n="1" /> A classification which considers the size, shape, and differential behavior of onsets and codas, as well as dominant crosslinguistic patterns is given in Maddieson (2013b). While broad, this classification captures prevalent crosslinguistic trends in syllable structure and has proven useful in establishing correlations between syllable structure complexity and other features of language structure, such as consonant phoneme inventory size. In a 486-language survey, languages are classified into three categories according to the size and shape of their largest observed onsets and codas:

**Simple:** languages in which the onset is maximally one C, and codas do not occur.

**Moderately Complex:** languages in which the onset is maximally two Cs, the second of which is a liquid or a glide; and/or the coda consists of maximally one C.

**Complex:** languages in which the maximal onset is two Cs (the second of which is something other than a liquid or a glide) or larger than two Cs; and/or the maximal coda consists of two or more Cs.

<footnote n="1">¹The size and structure of the nucleus may also be a consideration; cf. Maddieson et al. (2013).</footnote>
## 2.2 Defining the categories of syllable structure complexity

The distribution of the 486 languages in Maddieson's survey according to these three categories can be found in Table 2.1.

<table><caption>Table 2.1: Distribution of syllable structure complexity in languages of Maddieson (2013b).</caption><thead><tr><td>Syllable structure complexity</td><td>N languages</td><td>Percentage</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Simple</td><td>61</td><td>12.6</td></tr><tr><td>Moderately Complex</td><td>274</td><td>56.4</td></tr><tr><td>Complex</td><td>151</td><td>31.1</td></tr></tbody></table>

In contrast to the tightly-defined Simple and Moderately Complex categories, the Complex category in Maddieson (2013b) is diverse and open-ended. Languages in this category range from those whose most complex syllable is only a slight expansion on the Moderately Complex types – such as a CVCC shape in which the first consonant of the coda is limited to a liquid or glide – to those having far more complex structures involving up to eight consonants in a tautosyllabic cluster. In order to better understand the internal structure of the Complex category and the distribution of languages within it, I analyzed the size and shape of the maximal syllable structure of these 151 languages. The distribution of these languages can be found in Table 2.2, according to the size of their maximal onsets and codas.<fnref n="2" />

The visual distribution of the languages in Table 2.2 is striking: most languages cluster toward the upper left-hand corner of the table. Over half of the languages in the Complex category have syllable-marginal clusters of two consonants or fewer; that is, onsets and codas no more complex than a sequence of two obstruents. Though onsets of up to seven consonants and codas of up to eight consonants occur, it is very rare for a language to have more than four consonants at either margin (7/147, 4.8%).

Another interesting property of the distribution in Table 2.2 is that as cluster size increases, the crosslinguistic size asymmetry in onsets and codas appears to level out and then reverse. As discussed in Chapter 1, it is more common for a language to have complex onsets than complex codas. When smaller cluster sizes are considered, this pattern is clear even within the Complex category: languages which have three or more consonants in the onset are more common (50

<footnote n="2">²Note that there are only 147 languages represented in Table 2.2. Four of the languages in the Complex category in Maddieson (2013b) – Canela-Krahô, Ik, Indonesian, and Yagaria – have been reclassified as having Moderately Complex syllable structure in the current analysis.</footnote>
## 2 Language sample

<table><caption>Table 2.2: Distribution of languages in Complex syllable structure category in Maddieson (2013b), according to the size of the most complex onset (columns) and coda (rows) structures observed in each language.</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Coda</th><th colspan="7">Onset</th></tr><tr><th>C</th><th>CC</th><th>CCC</th><th>CCCC</th><th>CCCCC</th><th>CCCCCCC</th><th>CCCCCCCC</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>(none)</td><td></td><td>2</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>C</td><td></td><td>23</td><td>9</td><td>1</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>CC</td><td>35</td><td>21</td><td>13</td><td>3</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>CCC</td><td>3</td><td>5</td><td>8</td><td>3</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>CCCC</td><td>4</td><td>2</td><td>4</td><td>2</td><td>-</td><td>1</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>CCCCC</td><td>1</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>1</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>CCCCCCC</td><td>-</td><td>1</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>1</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>CCCCCCC</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>CCCCCCCC</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>1</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr></tbody></table>

languages) than languages which have these patterns in the coda (38 languages). However, when larger clusters are considered, we find that there is a reversal of the pattern: it is *less* common for languages to have onsets of four or more consonants (15 languages) than to have codas of the same size (19 languages). Examining the specific patterns in more depth than what is presented in Table 2.2, it seems that this reversal occurs when clusters of three *obstruents* are taken as the cutoff point: 24 languages have these, or more complex clusters, as an onset, and 26 languages have these, or more complex clusters, as a coda.

### 2.2.1 Long sequences of obstruents: Tautosyllabic clusters or syllabic consonants?

The above point relates to an interesting feature of attested large onset and coda patterns, also mentioned in Chapter 1, which is that many of these structures do not exhibit the sonority-related sequencing restrictions and contours that are so common of languages with smaller onsets and codas. It is not unusual to observe tautosyllabic clusters consisting entirely of obstruents in languages with large onsets or codas (3–4):

(3) Cocopa (Cochimi-Yuman; USA, Mexico)
    *pstʃʔá: w*
    I hang up several (things)'
    (Crawford Jr 1966: 36)
(4) Itelmen (Chukotko-Kamchatkan; Russia)
qsaltxつ
'Follow!'
(Georg & Volodin 1999: 44)

Thus a common characteristic of the more extreme cases of Complex syllable structure is the presence of long sequences of obstruents. This phenomenon can also be found in Tashlhiyt, a language which is classified as having Complex syllable structure, but which descriptions list as having only simple (Ridouane 2008) or maximally biconsonantal (Puech & Louali 1999) onsets and codas. Because the language also has syllabic obstruents, it is possible to find words without vowels which consist entirely of voiceless obstruents (5a–b):

(5) Tashlhiyt (Afro-Asiatic; Morocco)
a. tfsχt
‘you cancelled’
b. tftχtst:
‘you rolled it (f)’
(Ridouane 2002: 95)

There is evidence in the literature that word-initial onset clusters and word-initial consonant sequences with syllabic obstruents exhibit different gestural timing patterns between the rightmost consonant and vowel. Goldstein et al. (2007) instrumentally investigated the predictions of a coupled oscillator model of syllable structure for these two different kinds of word-initial sequences. In Georgian, the timing lag between gestures associated with the rightmost consonant and the vowel decreased with larger word-initial consonant sequences, in line with the model’s predictions for onset clusters. Thus word-initial consonant sequences, such as that in ts’k’riala ‘shiny clean,’ can be interpreted as syllable onsets in Georgian. In Tashlhiyt, no such pattern was found with increasingly larger word-initial consonant sequences; that is, the instrumental evidence suggested that only the consonant immediately preceding the vowel was coupled to it. Thus the initial sequence in tsmun ‘3FS-CAUS-accompany’ was interpreted as being syllabified as [ts.mun]. These results, expanded and confirmed by Hermes et al. (2011), lend support to the analysis of Tashlhiyt as having simple onsets and nucleus patterns which include syllabic obstruents, rather than large onset clusters.

While the results summarized above suggest that onset clusters and word-initial consonant sequences with syllabic consonants are categorically different
structures in terms of articulation, the situation is actually more complex than that. The Georgian data in Goldstein et al. (2007) was from two speakers, but only one speaker showed the expected effect. The other speaker had timing patterns which more closely resembled the Tashlhiyt pattern. An examination of this speaker's productions revealed the regular presence of an “epenthetic” vowel between [k'] and [r] in *k'riali* ‘glitter’ and *ts'k'iala* ‘shiny clean.’ When epenthesis occurred, the decreased timing lag between the rightmost consonant and vowel was not observed; that is, the word-initial sequence of consonants was split by a syllable boundary. The authors note that epenthesis occurred in the speech of both Georgian speakers, but not always in the same forms. However, when epenthesis did occur, it was in very specific phonological environments: when the place of articulation for C₁ was more posterior than that of C₂. Setting aside the issue of vowel epenthesis for now,<fnref n="3" /> an interesting finding from Goldstein et al. (2007) is that both timing patterns may occur for the same word-initial sequence in the same language.

A related observation regarding large tautosyllabic clusters and syllabic obstruents is that some languages are analyzed as having both in their canonical syllable structure. For example, Crawford Jr (1966) analyzes Cocopa as having large onset clusters, such as [pstʃ?] in (3) above. In addition to these, he proposes that some unstressed syllables can be entirely consonantal, consisting of “an onset only or of an onset and a coda with a predictable ‘murmur’ vowel following the onset as phonetic peak” (1966: 34). For example, *ptʃxmukáp* ‘he embraced her’ is syllabified as [pɪ.tʃxª.mu.káp] (1966: 43; quality of “murmur” vowel determined by environment). Patterns of the latter sort occur for specific consonantal combinations in Cocopa, much like the Georgian patterns described above.

There are also a number of languages which are analyzed by one author as having large tautosyllabic clusters, and by another as having simpler syllable margins but also syllabic obstruents. Hoard (1978) gives several examples of languages from the Pacific Northwest which had previously been analyzed as having large onsets and/or codas but might be better thought of as having smaller syllable margins in addition to syllabic stops and affricates (e.g. Quileute, Puget Salish, and Nez Perce). Hoard bases his analyses on impressionistic transcriptions, considering syllables to reflect “the number of audible pulses” in the form which are delineated by “relative separation or detachment” from other segments or groups of segments (1978: 59–60). Similar disagreements of analysis can be found for Yine (Arawakan; Matteson 1965; Lin 1997; Hanson 2010). Perhaps these languages are like Georgian and Cocopa above, in which different timing patterns may be produced by different speakers or for different consonant combinations.

<footnote n="3">³The issue of vowel epenthesis is an important one which has obvious implications for the analysis of syllable structure; this will be discussed further in §3.2.2.</footnote>
Without experimental data it is difficult to say whether one or both analyses are appropriate. What is clear, however, is that it is not uncommon for the same language, when exhibiting long sequences of consonants (especially obstruents) at word margins, to be alternately described as having large tautosyllabic clusters and/or syllabic obstruents. For this reason I argue that it is appropriate to group languages of both types together in the current study.

The above approach also has some support in instrumental findings in the literature regarding the articulatory properties of consonantal nuclei. Pouplier & Beňuš (2011) found that for syllabic liquids in Slovak, the kinematic properties of the consonantal gestures did not undergo consistent changes in nucleus position. The authors conclude that in this respect, syllables with consonantal nuclei behave like consonant clusters. According to other instrumental measures, syllabic liquids exhibit timing and gestural coordination relationships with adjacent consonants which are reminiscent of those found in onset or coda clusters, but still distinct from those found in both non-syllabic consonant clusters and vocalic nuclei. Similarly, Fougeron & Ridouane (2008) found that /k/ in Tashlhiyt does not undergo consistent acoustic or articulatory changes when syllabic. However, it does exhibit consistent and stable patterns of temporal alignment and coordination relationships with flanking consonants which are, as noted in the discussion of Goldstein et al. (2007) above, similar to those expected for onset-nucleus-coda patterns. Thus the instrumental evidence point to syllabic consonants as phenomena which exhibit some of the coordination properties of vocalic nuclei while maintaining articulatory properties of non-syllabic consonants.

### 2.2.2 Highly Complex syllable structure: A definition

Motivated by all of the observations above – the distribution of languages in Table 2.2, three-obstruent clusters as the locus of the weakening of the onset/-coda asymmetry, and the similar patterns observed in languages with large tautosyllabic obstruent clusters and those with syllabic obstruents – I define Highly Complex syllable structure as follows:

**Highly Complex:** languages in which the maximal onset or coda consists of three obstruents, or four or more Cs of any kind; and/or in which syllabic obstruents occur, resulting in word-marginal sequences of three or more obstruents.

Table 2.3 shows how the 486 languages in Maddieson (2013b) are distributed with the addition of the Highly Complex category as defined above. The definition of the Complex category is adjusted accordingly, and the Simple and Moderately Complex categories are defined as in the previous work.
## 2 Language sample

<table><caption>Table 2.3: A reanalysis of the data in Maddieson (2013b), with the added category of Highly Complex as defined in the current work.</caption><thead><tr><td>Syllable structure complexity</td><td>N languages</td><td>Percentage</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Simple</td><td>61</td><td>12.6</td></tr><tr><td>Moderately Complex</td><td>278</td><td>57.2</td></tr><tr><td>Complex</td><td>110</td><td>22.6</td></tr><tr><td>Highly Complex</td><td>37</td><td>7.6</td></tr></tbody></table>

While the structural divisions between the syllable structure complexity categories are not evenly distributed, they capture predominant crosslinguistic patterns and serve the specific aims of the current study. These categories provide a four-point scale by which syllable structure complexity can be correlated with other structural features. The Highly Complex category is also defined in such a way as to include the extreme end of the syllable structure complexity cline, but not so narrowly as to introduce extreme genealogical and areal bias into this group. This will allow for meaningful examination, both quantitative and qualitative, of the characteristics of this group of languages.

## 2.3 Constructing the language sample

Three criteria shaped the design of the language sample for this study: (i) the size of the sample must be large enough for meaningful quantitative analysis, but small enough for in-depth qualitative analysis of the languages with highly complex syllable structure; (ii) the proportional representation of the four syllable structure complexity categories must be similar enough to allow for meaningful comparisons between the groups, and (iii) as per the discussion of bias in typological studies in §2.1, the sample should be both genealogically and areally diverse.

In addressing (i), a sample of approximately 100 languages is appropriate. While this sample size is moderate for a phonological typology survey, it is comparable to those used in studies such as Bateman (2007) and Bybee & Easterday (2019), both of which have quantitative and qualitative components. Given the relative crosslinguistic rarity of languages in the Simple and Highly Complex categories (Table 2.3) and the skewed geographical and genealogical distribution of syllable structure complexity, meeting criteria (ii) and (iii) is a more difficult endeavor. In constructing the sample, an attempt was made to strike a reasonable balance between the ideal sample composition and these practical considerations. The resulting sample is described in the following section.
### 2.4 Language sample for current study

The language sample includes 24 languages in the Simple category, 26 languages in the Moderately Complex category, 25 languages in the Complex category, and 25 languages in the Highly Complex category. Tables 2.4–2.7 list the languages of the sample by syllable structure complexity, geographical macro-area, and genealogical affiliation. A more detailed list which includes ISO 639-3 codes, speaker populations, and language endangerment and development status, can be found in Appendix A.

Note that the language sample used here has been updated from the one used in Easterday (2017). Nine of the languages in that sample have been replaced in the current work. Languages from the original sample not included here are Hausa (Afro-Asiatic), Nkore-Kiga (Atlantic-Congo), Ilocano (Austronesian), Ma'ya (Austronesian), Nakanai (Austronesian), Ngäbere (Chibchan), Toro So (Digon), Karajá (Nuclear-Macro-Je), and Chepang (Sino-Tibetan). These have been replaced by Kambaata (Afro-Asiatic), Paiwan (Austronesian), Saaroa (Austronesian), Ma'di (Central Sudanic), Murui Huitoto (Huitotoan), Cavineña (Pano-Tacanan), Atong (Sino-Tibetan), Sumi Naga (Sino-Tibetan), and Bench (Ta-Ne-Omotic).

#### 2.4.1 Areal features of sample

The 100 languages are roughly evenly distributed among the six geographical macro-areas as defined by Dryer (1989; 1992).<fnref n="4" /> Africa, Australia & New Guinea, North America, and South America are represented by 17 languages each. Two regions, Eurasia and Southeast Asia & Oceania, are represented by 16 languages each. See Figure 2.1 for a plotted map of the languages of the sample.

<footnote n="4">⁴The geographical macro-areas are specifically defined as follows (Dryer 1989: 268; Dryer 1992: 83, 133–135). **Africa**: continent of Africa, including Semitic languages of southwest Asia. **Australia & New Guinea**: Australian continent and Melanesia, excluding Austronesian languages of Melanesia. **Eurasia**: Eurasian landmass, excluding Semitic and languages from families of southeast Asia as defined below, and including the Munda languages of Austroasiatic. **North America**: North American continent, including languages of Mexico, Mayan and Aztecan languages in Central America, and some branches of Chibchan-Paezan. **South America**: South American continent, including languages of Central America except Mayan and Aztecan languages, and some Chibchan-Paezan branches. **Southeast Asia & Oceania**: Southeast Asian region, including all Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai, Hmong-Mien, and Austroasiatic languages excluding Munda, and Oceania region (Austronesian languages).</footnote>
<table><caption>Table 2.4: Languages in Simple syllable structure category, by macro-area and genealogical affiliation.</caption><thead><tr><th>Region</th><th>Language</th><th>Top-level family</th><th>Subfamily</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="5">AFRICA</td><td>Hadza</td><td>(isolate)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Southern Grebo</td><td>Atlantic-Congo</td><td>Volta-Congo</td></tr><tr><td>Yoruba</td><td>Atlantic-Congo</td><td>Volta-Congo</td></tr><tr><td>Ma'di</td><td>Central Sudanic</td><td>Moru-Madi</td></tr><tr><td>Southern Bobo Madaré</td><td>Mande</td><td>Western Mande</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="5">AUSTRALIA & NEW GUINEA</td><td>Savosavo</td><td>(isolate)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Grass Koiari</td><td>Koiarian</td><td>Koiaric</td></tr><tr><td>Rotokas</td><td>North Bougainville</td><td>Rotokas-Askopan</td></tr><tr><td>East Kewa</td><td>Nuclear Trans New Guinea</td><td>Enga-Kewa-Huli</td></tr><tr><td>Towa</td><td>Kiowa-Tanoan</td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">NORTH AMERICA</td><td>Pinotepa Mixtec</td><td>Otomanguean</td><td>Eastern Otomanguean</td></tr><tr><td>Ute</td><td>Uto-Aztecan</td><td>Northern Uto-Aztecan</td></tr><tr><td>Urarina</td><td>(isolate)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="6">SOUTH AMERICA</td><td>Warao</td><td>(isolate)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Apurinã</td><td>Arawakan</td><td>Southern Maipuran</td></tr><tr><td>Murui Huitoto</td><td>Huitotoan</td><td>Nuclear Witotoan</td></tr><tr><td>Cavineña</td><td>Pano-Tacanan</td><td>Tacanan</td></tr><tr><td>Cubeo</td><td>Tucanoan</td><td>Eastern Tucanoan</td></tr><tr><td>SOUTHEAST ASIA & OCEANIA</td><td>Rukai (Budai dialect)</td><td>Austronesian</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Maori</td><td>Austronesian</td><td>Malayo-Polynesian</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Tukang Besi North</td><td>Austronesian</td><td>Malayo-Polynesian</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Saaroa</td><td>Austronesian</td><td>Tsouic</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Sichuan Yi</td><td>Sino-Tibetan</td><td>Burmo-Qiangic</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Sumi Naga</td><td>Sino-Tibetan</td><td>Kuki-Chin-Naga</td></tr></tbody></table>
## 2.4 Language sample for current study

<table><caption>Table 2.5: Languages in Moderately Complex syllable structure category, by macro-area and genealogical affiliation.</caption><thead><tr><th>Region</th><th>Language</th><th>Top-level family</th><th>Subfamily</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="5">AFRICA</td><td>Kambaata</td><td>Afro-Asiatic</td><td>Cushitic</td></tr><tr><td>Ewe</td><td>Atlantic-Congo</td><td>Volta-Congo</td></tr><tr><td>Fur</td><td>Furan</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Kanuri</td><td>Saharan</td><td>Western Saharan</td></tr><tr><td>AUSTRALIA &amp; NEW GUINEA</td><td>Maybrat</td><td>Maybrat-Karon</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Kamasau</td><td>Nuclear Torricelli</td><td>Marienberg</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Selepet</td><td>Nuclear Trans New Guinea</td><td>Finisterre-Huon</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Alyawarra</td><td>Pama-Nyungan</td><td>Arandic-Thura-Yura</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="5">EURASIA</td><td>Kharia</td><td>Austroasiatic</td><td>Munda</td></tr><tr><td>Telugu</td><td>Dravidian</td><td>South Dravidian</td></tr><tr><td>Darai</td><td>Indo-European</td><td>Indo-Iranian</td></tr><tr><td>Tu</td><td>Mongolic</td><td>Southern Periphery Mongolic</td></tr><tr><td>Eastern Khanty</td><td>Uralic</td><td>Khantyic</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="5">NORTH AMERICA</td><td>Karok</td><td>(isolate)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>North Slavey (Hare dialect)</td><td>Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit</td><td>Athabaskan-Eyak</td></tr><tr><td>Kalaallisut</td><td>Eskimo-Aleut</td><td>Eskimo</td></tr><tr><td>Choctaw</td><td>Muskogean</td><td>Western Muskogean</td></tr><tr><td>Cocama-Cocamilla</td><td>Tupian</td><td>Maweti-Guarani</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="6">SOUTH AMERICA</td><td>Carib</td><td>Cariban</td><td>Guianan</td></tr><tr><td>Imbabura Highland Quichua</td><td>Quechuan</td><td>Quechua II</td></tr><tr><td>Cocama-Cocamilla</td><td>Tupian</td><td>Maweti-Guarani</td></tr><tr><td>Pacoh</td><td>Austroasiatic</td><td>Katuic</td></tr><tr><td>Paiwan</td><td>Austronesian</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Kim Mun (Vietnam dialect)</td><td>Hmong-Mien</td><td>Mienic</td></tr><tr><td>SOUTHEAST ASIA &amp; OCEANIA</td><td>Atong</td><td>Sino-Tibetan</td><td>Brahmaputran</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Cantonese</td><td>Sino-Tibetan</td><td>Sinitic</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Lao</td><td>Tai-Kadai</td><td>Kam-Tai</td></tr></tbody></table>
## 2 Language sample

<table><caption>Table 2.6: Languages in Complex syllable structure category, by macro-area and genealogical affiliation.</caption><thead><tr><th>REGION</th><th>Language</th><th>Top-level family</th><th>Subfamily</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="5">AFRICA</td><td>Mpade (Makari dialect)</td><td>Afro-Asiatic</td><td>Chadic</td></tr><tr><td>Jola-Fonyi</td><td>Atlantic-Congo</td><td>North-Central Atlantic</td></tr><tr><td>Lunda</td><td>Atlantic-Congo</td><td>Volta-Congo</td></tr><tr><td>Dizin (Central dialect)</td><td>Dizoid</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Gaam</td><td>Eastern Jebel</td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="5">AUSTRALIA & NEW GUINEA</td><td>Mangarrayi</td><td>Mangarrayi-Maran</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Nimboran</td><td>Nimboranic</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Oksapmin</td><td>Nuclear Trans New Guinea</td><td>Asman-Awyu-Ok</td></tr><tr><td>Bardi</td><td>Nyulnyulan</td><td>Western Nyulnyulan</td></tr><tr><td>Ngarinyin</td><td>Worrorran</td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="5">EURASIA</td><td>Basque (Central dialect)</td><td>(isolate)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Burushaski</td><td>(isolate)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Nivkh (West Sakhalin dialect)</td><td>(isolate)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Bashkir</td><td>Turkic</td><td>Common Turkic</td></tr><tr><td>Ket</td><td>Yeniseian</td><td>Northern Yeniseian</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4">NORTH AMERICA</td><td>Pech</td><td>Chibchan</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Tzeltal</td><td>Mayan</td><td>Core Mayan</td></tr><tr><td>(Aguacatenango dialect)</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Lakota</td><td>Siouan</td><td>Core Siouan</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4">SOUTH AMERICA</td><td>Kadiwéu</td><td>Guaicuruan</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Mamaindê</td><td>Nambiquaran</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Apinayé</td><td>Nuclear-Macro-Je</td><td>Nambikwara Complex</td></tr><tr><td>Chipaya</td><td>Uru-Chipaya</td><td>Je</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">SOUTHEAST ASIA & OCEANIA</td><td>Koho (Sre dialect)</td><td>Austroasiatic</td><td>Baharic</td></tr><tr><td>Lelepa</td><td>Austronesian</td><td>Malayo-Polynesian</td></tr><tr><td>Lepcha</td><td>Sino-Tibetan</td><td>Himalayish</td></tr></tbody></table>
## 2.4 Language sample for current study

<table><caption>Table 2.7: Languages in Highly Complex syllable structure category, by macro-area and genealogical affiliation.</caption><thead><tr><th>REGION</th><th>Language</th><th>Top-level family</th><th>Subfamily</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="3">AFRICA</td><td>Tashlhiyt</td><td>Afro-Asiatic</td><td>Berber</td></tr><tr><td>Doyayo</td><td>Atlantic-Congo</td><td>Volta-Congo</td></tr><tr><td>Bench</td><td>Ta-Ne-Omotic</td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="5">AUSTRALIA & NEW GUINEA</td><td>Menya</td><td>Angan</td><td>Nuclear Angan</td></tr><tr><td>Kunjen (Oykangand dialect)</td><td>Pama-Nyungan</td><td>Paman</td></tr><tr><td>Alamblak</td><td>Sepik</td><td>Sepik Hill</td></tr><tr><td>Wutung</td><td>Sko</td><td>Nuclear<br>Skou-Serra-Piore</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="6">EURASIA</td><td>Kabardian</td><td>Abkhaz-Adyge</td><td>Circassian</td></tr><tr><td>Itelmen</td><td>Chukotko-<br>Kamchatkan</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Albanian (Tosk dialect)</td><td>Indo-European</td><td>Albanian</td></tr><tr><td>Polish</td><td>Indo-European</td><td>Balto-Slavic</td></tr><tr><td>Georgian</td><td>Kartvelian</td><td>Georgian-Zan</td></tr><tr><td>Lezgian</td><td>Nakh-Daghestanian</td><td>Daghestanian</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="7">NORTH AMERICA</td><td>Passamaquoddy-<br>Maliseet</td><td>Algic</td><td>Algonquian</td></tr><tr><td>Cocopa</td><td>Cochimi-Yuman</td><td>Yuman</td></tr><tr><td>Mohawk</td><td>Iroquoian</td><td>Northern Iroquoian</td></tr><tr><td>Yakima Sahaptin</td><td>Sahaptian</td><td>Sahaptin</td></tr><tr><td>Thompson</td><td>Salishan</td><td>Interior Salish</td></tr><tr><td>Tohono O'odham</td><td>Uto-Aztecan</td><td>Southern Uto-Aztecan</td></tr><tr><td>Nuu-chah-nulth</td><td>Wakashan</td><td>Southern Wakashan</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="6">SOUTH AMERICA</td><td>Camsá</td><td>(isolate)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Yine</td><td>Arawakan</td><td>Southern Maipuran</td></tr><tr><td>Tehuelche</td><td>Chonan</td><td>Continental Chonan</td></tr><tr><td>Qawasqar</td><td>Kawesqar</td><td>North Central<br>Alacalufan</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>SOUTHEAST ASIA & OCEANIA</td><td>Semai</td><td>Austroasiatic</td><td>Aslian</td></tr></tbody></table>
## 2 Language sample

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2.1: Geographic distribution of languages in the sample, with colors denoting syllable structure complexity. S = Simple, MC = Moderately Complex, C = Complex, HC = Highly Complex. The maps in this book were created with the lingtypology package (Moroz 2017) for R (R Core Team 2019).</figcaption></figure>

There are some asymmetries in the areal representation of syllable structure complexity in the sample. In Eurasia, the Simple category is entirely unrepresented. In Southeast Asia & Oceania, the Highly Complex category is represented by only one language. In North America, the Highly Complex category is relatively overrepresented, accounting for seven of the languages in that region.

### 2.4.2 Genealogical features of sample

The 100 languages of the sample belong to 74 different language families.<fnref n="5" /> 64 of the language families are represented by one language each; this figure includes nine language isolates and many small and mid-sized families. Another three language families – Arawakan, Pama-Nyungan, and Uto-Aztecan – are represented in the sample by two languages each. All of the language families represented by more than two languages in the sample – Afro-Asiatic, Atlantic-Congo, Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Indo-European, Nuclear Trans New Guinea, and Sino-Tibetan – are within the top ten in the world by size in number of languages (Hammarström et al. 2018). Every attempt was made to maximize the diversity of subfamilies within the top-level families represented by more than one language in the sample. Subfamilies represented by more than one language are

<footnote n="5">⁵For genealogical affiliations, I use the classifications in Glottolog 3.3 (Hammarström et al. 2018).</footnote>
## 2.4 Language sample for current study

Volta-Congo (Atlantic-Congo family, five languages), Malayo-Polynesian (Austronesian family, three languages) and Southern Maipuran (Arawakan family, two languages). There are no pidgins or creoles in the sample.<fnref n="6" />

Most often, a language family is represented by only one language within a syllable structure complexity category. The Simple category is somewhat less genealogically diverse than the others, with only 19 families represented by the 24 languages.

Recall from §2.1.3 that an important feature of the language sample design is the inclusion of pairs of related languages with maximally different syllable structure complexities. This allows for hypotheses about the diachronic development of highly complex syllable structure to be tested at the local level. The sample includes five relevant pairs from five macro-areas: Ute (Simple) and Tohono O'odham (Highly Complex), both Uto-Aztecan from North America; Apurinã (Simple) and Yine (Highly Complex), both Arawakan from South America; Yoruba (Simple) and Lunda (Complex), both Atlantic-Congo from Africa; Darai (Moderately Complex) and Albanian (Highly Complex), both Indo-European from Eurasia; and Maori (Simple) and Lelepa (Complex), both Austronesian from Southeast Asia & Oceania. Some pairs of languages are more closely related than others.<fnref n="7" />

### 2.4.3 Sociolinguistic features of sample

Speaker population data and language vitality status classifications for the languages of the sample can be found in Appendix A.

The L1 speaker populations for the languages of the sample vary widely, ranging from five for Tehuelche (Chonan, Patagonia) and Yakima Sahaptin (Sahaptian, Pacific Northwest) to 74,244,300 for Telugu (Dravidian, Southern India). In general, the languages in the Simple and Moderately Complex categories have larger speaker populations than those in the Complex and Highly Complex categories, though there are many exceptions to this trend. Of the 26 languages with fewer than 1,000 speakers, 18 of them have Complex or Highly Complex syllable structure, and half of the ten languages with fewer than 100 speakers

<footnote n="6">⁶There is debate over whether Cocama-Cocamilla may be appropriately classified as a creole. While the language is typically classified as Tupi-Guaraní, it is quite divergent from other languages of the family in aspects of its phonology and morphosyntax, perhaps owing to factors of language contact. See Vallejos Yopán (2010) for a critical discussion of this topic.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷The region of Australia & New Guinea is not represented in these pair comparisons. The only family represented by more than one language in this region is Nuclear Trans New Guinea; however some of its subfamily classifications are controversial or not well demonstrated (Pawley 2005).</footnote>
have Highly Complex syllable structure. The prevalence of very smaller speaker populations among languages in these categories is no doubt related to the high concentration of these languages in geographical areas with high rates of language endangerment.

The Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) is an assessment of language vitality developed by Lewis & Simons (2010), following work by Fishman (1991), UNESCO (Brenzinger et al. 2003), and others. It considers many different factors of language use, including rates and means of intergenerational transmission, domains of language use, and official recognition of the language. Using EGIDS as a starting point, Ethnologue (Simons & Fennig 2018) has developed a coarse-grained estimate of the relative development versus endangerment of languages. By this measure, languages are classified into categories according to their development/vitality status: Institutional, Developing, Vigorous, In Trouble, and Dying.<fnref n="8" /> Languages with robust vitality are more common in the Simple and Moderately Complex portions of the sample. The Complex and Highly Complex categories have the highest proportion of languages classified as Dying (6/25 languages in each category). It should be noted that in North America, which has perhaps the highest proportion of languages with Highly Complex patterns of all the macro-areas, rates of language endangerment and language loss are extreme. Ethnologue 21 classifies 237/254 (93%) of the living languages spoken north of the US-Mexico border in North America as In Trouble or Dying (Simons & Fennig 2018).

The sociolinguistic features of the language sample lead to an interesting observation: highly complex syllable structure is a rare language feature by many different measures, including non-structural ones. As described in Chapter 1, highly complex phonotactic patterns are often treated as anomalies and theoretical outliers, especially when occurring in underdescribed non-European languages. A very small proportion of the world's languages have structures of this kind. Many of the languages with these structures are found in parts of the

<footnote n="8">⁸The language development categories are defined as follows (Simons & Fennig 2018). **Institutional**: language has wide use in the home and community and official status at educational, provincial, national, and/or international levels. **Developing**: language is used in the home community, and sometimes broader contexts, and in initial stages of developing a system of writing and standardization. **Vigorous**: language is used in the home and community by speakers of all generations, but has not yet developed a system of graphization or standardization. **In Trouble**: language is currently in the process of losing intergenerational transmission, with the community shifting to other languages for daily use, but there are still speakers of child-bearing age. **Dying**: language has lost intergenerational transmission entirely, all fluent speakers are above child-bearing age.</footnote>
world where language endangerment rates are particularly high, and have correspondingly small speaker populations. Thus highly complex syllable structure is a marginalized pattern in theoretical, descriptive, historical, and social terms. This is all the more reason to dedicate a typological study to this linguistic feature.

## 2.5 Data collection

The data used for this study was collected from published reference grammars, phonetic and phonological studies, and other relevant language descriptions. In a few cases, an expert researcher on the given language was additionally consulted. Data was collected with the guidance of coding sheets whose questions were designed to address the research questions and hypotheses of each chapter. As the methodology behind the coding of the data differs for each part of the study, it will be discussed separately within each chapter.

Because the language references consulted were written in different time periods and reflect a variety of descriptive practices, they use diverse transcription standards. Using the phonetic descriptions of sounds in the language references, all phoneme inventories and phonetic and phonemic transcriptions have been transcribed using International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols. Where there is some ambiguity in interpreting the phonetic description provided by the source consulted, this has been noted in Appendix B. In the examples given in this chapter and throughout the book, non-IPA symbols have been replaced by their IPA equivalents.
<figure><img src="image_12.png" /></figure>
# 3 Syllable structure patterns in sample

In this chapter properties of syllable structure in the language sample are presented. In §3.1 common topics of research in crosslinguistic studies of syllable structure and specific considerations in the current study are discussed. In §3.2 the methodology and coding strategies are described. In §3.3 the results on onset, coda, and nucleus patterns, as well as morphological constituency patterns in maximal clusters, are presented for the language sample as a whole. In §3.4 a more detailed analysis of the syllable patterns of the languages in the sample with Highly Complex syllable structure is presented. In §3.5 the findings are summarized and related to following chapters.

## 3.1 Introduction

### 3.1.1 Crosslinguistic studies of syllable structure

A common approach to studying syllable structure on a crosslinguistic scale is to compare canonical syllable patterns across languages. This is the range of occurring syllable patterns in a language represented as a sequence of Cs for consonants and Vs for vowels, with parentheses indicating optional components of the onset, nucleus, and coda (e.g. (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C) for English). Many databases of phonological patterns include canonical syllable structure as one of the coded features along with consonant and vowel phoneme inventories; e.g. the World Phonotactics Database (Donohue et al. 2013), LAPSyD (Maddieson et al. 2013), and a modified version of the WALS 100-language sample presented in Gordon (2016). Though it is a very general measure, the size and shape of canonical syllable patterns can be used to categorize languages in such a way as to capture predominant global trends (cf. Maddieson 2013b).

More often, crosslinguistic studies of syllable patterns are focused on finer-grained aspects of syllable structure, including sub-syllabic constituents. A number of studies investigating the properties of syllable margins have revealed trends regarding the size, voicing, place, manner, and sonority of consonant sequences in the onset and coda, as well as implications regarding the makeup of
onset and coda inventories (cf. Greenberg 1978, see Chapter 1). Large-scale studies of syllable margins are typically limited to biconsonantal clusters, as these are crosslinguistically the most frequent cluster type, but larger clusters have been explored as well (VanDam 2004, and a few of the analyses in Greenberg 1978). A few typological studies of cluster patterns focus specifically on implicational relationships in obstruent clusters. For instance, Morelli (1999; 2003) examines implicational relationships in biconsonantal onsets composed of stops and fricatives in 30 languages, while Kreitman (2008) reports implicational relationships among obstruent clusters of mixed sonority and voicing in 62 languages. There are also studies which examine the patterns of simple onsets and codas: Rousset (2004) compares, among other things, the relative proportion of consonants which occur in onset versus coda position in 15 diverse languages. Nucleus patterns have also been the subject of typological investigation, with much of the research emphasizing the sonority-based implications that can be gleaned from global distributions of syllable nuclei patterns (Blevins 1995; Zec 2007). As discussed in §1.1.2.4, Bell (1978b) explores global and areal patterns of syllabic consonants in a sample of 182 diverse languages, deriving implicational generalizations regarding the manner and place of articulation of such sounds. Hoard (1978) is a survey of syllabic obstruent patterns in languages of the Pacific Northwest and Northwest Plateau regions of North America, and includes analyses of data from five diverse languages as well as brief references to others.

Relationships among the different constituents of the syllable have also been investigated crosslinguistically. An analysis of syllable frequencies in the lexicons of five languages revealed that simple onsets and nuclei – CV sequences – may combine relatively freely (Maddieson & Precoda 1992). By contrast, relationships between other pairs of subsyllabic constituents tend to show more restrictions across languages. Onsets and codas have often been treated independently of one another with respect to their internal patterns and relationships to the larger syllable; however, Davis & Baertsch (2011) show that the coda and the second member of a biconsonantal onset are often restricted to the same subset of consonants in a language. Similarly, Blevins (2006) observes that languages with only open syllables tend to have optional onsets. Gordon (2006) investigates the wide range of behavior exhibited by languages with respect to issues of syllable weight, which may be dependent upon complex combinations of nucleus and coda patterns, and minimal requirements for root and/or word structures, which may implicate onset patterns in addition to those of the rime.

Many researchers have investigated the properties of syllables in contact with one another or within the context of larger domains. Crosslinguistically, syllabification patterns are such that sonority tends to fall from the coda of one syllable.
ble to the onset of the next; this observation is supported by evidence from di-
achronic processes of sound change in various languages (Hooper 1976; Murray
& Vennemann 1983). Syllable margins can also exhibit differing patterns accord-
ing to their position within larger domains. Côté (2011) observes crosslinguistic
asymmetries in coda patterns in final versus medial position in stem, word, and
phrasal domains. Similarly, ‘prominent’ environments such as word- and phrase-
initial syllables and stressed syllables are often the locus of the highest amount
of phonemic contrast and variety in syllable margins in a language, though there
are areal exceptions to this global trend. For example, Gasser & Bowern (2014)
note more onset restrictions in word-initial as compared to word-internal posi-
tion in Australian languages.

Crosslinguistic studies also investigate the distribution of syllable types within syllable inventories, lexicons, and words of varying lengths in order to determine frequency patterns and uncover implicational hierarchies. The presence of VC structures in a language, for example, generally implies the presence of V, CV, and CVC structures as well (Blevins 1995). Frequency distributions of syllable types in the lexicons of diverse languages reveal a heavy crosslinguistic dominance of the CV type, despite wide variation in canonical syllable structures (Rousset 2004; Vallée et al. 2009). There is also evidence of a relationship between syllable length and word length. Fenk & Fenk-Oczlon (1993) tested Menzerath’s Law (paraphrased as “the bigger the whole, the smaller the parts”) in a sample of 29 languages and found a significant negative linear correlation between the number of syllables per word and the number of phonemes per syllable.

A facet of syllable structure that has received limited crosslinguistic treat-
ment is that of the morphological constituency of clusters at syllable margins.
Several of the studies listed above (e.g. Greenberg 1978, Morelli 1999; Kreitman
2008) exclude morphologically complex clusters from analysis on the assump-
tion that these clusters may exhibit different patterns than clusters found within
the boundaries of a single morpheme. Dressler & Dziubalska-Kołaczyk (2006)
examine syllable patterns in a sample of four Indo-European languages and pro-
pose two types of clusters defined by morphological constituency: phonotactic
clusters, which are phonologically motivated and morpheme-internal, and mor-
phonotactic clusters, which come about through morphological processes. They
conclude that the latter are often longer and more phonologically marked in
comparison to the former (see also Dressler et al. 2010; Orzechowska 2012, and
Dressler et al. 2015 for other studies in this vein).
**3.1.2 Considerations in the current chapter**

While all of the above issues are important in developing a detailed understand-
ing of crosslinguistic syllable patterns, for practical purposes the current study is
limited to exploring just a few of these in depth. In this chapter I investigate issues
of syllable structure that are directly pertinent to addressing the main research
questions and hypotheses of this study. Specifically, I limit the scope of analysis
here to features of syllable structure which have been previously demonstrated
or hinted in the literature to be correlated with other linguistic, and especially
phonological, features, and those which I hypothesize may reveal clues about
the diachronic development of highly complex syllable structure. Additionally, I
examine the syllable patterns of the languages in the Highly Complex portion of
the sample in greater detail than the other categories, in order to develop a better
understanding of the coherence of that group. The features under consideration
are listed in (1–2):

(1) Features examined for entire sample

a. *Canonical syllable structure*

b. *Nucleus patterns*

c. *Morphological constituency of maximal syllable margins and syllabic consonants*

(2) Features examined for languages in the Highly Complex category

a. *Specific Highly Complex syllable patterns occurring*

b. *Restrictions on Highly Complex syllable patterns*

c. *Relative frequency of Highly Complex patterns within languages*

d. *Phonetic characteristics of Highly Complex clusters*

The coding of feature (1a), canonical syllable structure, is motivated by pre-
vious findings in the research. As mentioned in Chapter 1, positive correlations
have been established between syllable structure complexity (defined categori-
cally and holistically with reference to canonical syllable structure) and conso-
nant phoneme inventory size (Maddieson 2013b). A positive relationship has also
been established between syllable structure complexity and the number of con-
sonants belonging to certain classes within a language (Maddieson et al. 2013).
Gordon (2016) has demonstrated that the trend by which consonant phoneme
inventory size increases with syllable complexity occurs on a more fine-grained
level as well, when complexity is measured as the combined sum of canonical
onset and coda constituents. Along another line of inquiry, Blevins (2006: 336)
has described a crosslinguistic tendency by which languages without codas tend to have optional onsets. This suggests a relationship between obligatoriness of constituents and canonical syllable structure patterns which, to my knowledge, has not been investigated in a language sample controlled for syllable structure complexity.

Nucleus patterns (1b), and syllabic consonant patterns more specifically, have also been suggested in the literature to bear some relation to syllable structure complexity. On the one hand, the holistic phonological typology proposed by Isačenko (1939) predicts that “vocalic” languages – those which have shorter consonant sequences and relatively higher vowel/consonant ratios – are more likely to develop syllabic consonants than “consonantal” languages. This suggests that we might expect a greater prevalence of syllabic consonants in languages of the Simple and Moderately Complex categories. On the other hand, Bell (1978b) notes that syllabic consonants often come about through vowel deletion, often in unstressed syllables, which is also known to be a common source of consonant clusters. Based on that observation, we might expect a higher occurrence of syllabic consonants in languages with Complex or Highly Complex syllable structure. The way that the language sample is constructed allows us to test these predictions directly. My hypothesis, rooted in the discussion of speech rhythm typology in Chapter 1, is that the latter prediction will be borne out (3).

(3) Languages with more complex syllable structure are more likely to have syllabic consonants.

Feature (1c), morphological constituency, is related to both of the issues discussed above. Greenberg (1978: 250) and Dressler & Dziubalska-Kołaczyk (2006) predict that as the size of a syllable margin increases, so does the probability that it contains morpheme boundaries. Additionally, syllabic consonants are often noted to be largely or entirely restricted to grammatical particles and affixes (Bell 1978b: 159), suggesting additional potential interactions between syllable structure complexity and morphology if syllabic consonants are found to occur more frequently in languages on one end of the syllable complexity scale. In coding for (1c) I consider the morphological patterns of the largest syllable margins in each language, as well as the kinds of morphemes in which syllabic consonants occur in the languages which have them. These analyses will provide a rough measure of the relationship between morphology and the syllable patterns of a language, which can then be explored in greater depth at a later point, especially if the results point towards a heavy role of morphology in the development of highly complex syllable structure. My hypotheses regarding morphological constituency follow (4a–b):
### 3 Syllable structure patterns in sample

(4) a. As syllable structure complexity increases, so does the likelihood that the largest syllable margin types in a language will be morphologically complex.

b. As syllable structure complexity increases, so does the likelihood that syllabic consonants occurring in a language will belong to grammatical elements.

The examination of features (2a-d) is intended to develop a more detailed picture of the syllable patterns of the languages in the Highly Complex portion of the sample. The purpose of this portion of the analysis is twofold: to determine whether the languages form a coherent phonological type with respect to their syllable patterns, and to gather information that may be relevant to uncovering how these structures come about over time. The specific syllable patterns falling under the definition of Highly Complex will be examined for each language and compared with those of the other languages of the group to determine how similar they are to one another. In an attempt to characterize the prevalence of Highly Complex syllable patterns within each language, restrictions on the patterns will be examined for each language, and information gathered on the relative frequency of the patterns within the language. Finally, descriptions of the phonetic characteristics of Highly Complex syllable structures will be noted and compared.

Apart from those which are aimed at testing the three specific hypotheses listed above, the analyses in this chapter are largely exploratory in nature. The findings here are intended to provide a baseline characterization of the syllable patterns of the four categories of the language sample. Additionally, the in-depth examination of the Highly Complex portion of the sample will serve as a point of reference in which to ground the results of later chapters.

## 3.2 Methodology

### 3.2.1 Patterns considered

As discussed in Chapter 1, interpretations of syllable patterns may vary dramatically according to the theoretical framework which is used. For example, even simple coda consonants and biconsonantal onsets, both crosslinguistically common patterns, are problematic in a strict CV approach, which must posit empty nuclei for phonetic occurrences of these structures (Lowenstamm 1996). Though less restrictive models of the syllable may accept small onset and coda
clusters, large clusters and syllabic obstruents are typically considered problem-
atic, with members being relegated to an appendix or left entirely unsyllabified at
the level of phonological representation (Vaux & Wolfe 2009; Bagemihl 1991). In
language documentation and description, authors often choose a model which is
compatible with the occurring syllable patterns of the language. However, some
researchers work within a strict theoretical framework in which the abstract syl-
lable structure has been predetermined, and the patterns of the language are
made to fit into the model. This causes obvious complications for crosslinguistic
comparison of syllable patterns.

Because such a wide range of frameworks is used by researchers in their de-
scriptions of syllable structure, and because the choice of model may have strong
implications for the patterns reported, I opt instead to use a definition of canon-
ical syllable structure motivated largely by the invariant phonetic patterns ob-
served at word margins. Here onset clusters include patterns occurring word-
initially before a vowel (and, if they differ at all from word-initial patterns, clus-
ters occurring word-internally before a vowel where syllabification as an onset
is supported by language-internal evidence). Likewise, coda clusters include pat-
terns occurring word-finally after a vowel (with the same considerations given to
word-internal post-vocalic patterns). In this view, all consonants are syllabified
as part of an onset or coda, or, in the case of syllabic consonants, as a nucleus.
Morphologically complex pre-/post-vocalic sequences, such as the word-initial
biconsonantal sequence in (5) below, are thus considered as onset or coda pat-
terns, in addition to morpheme-internal sequences.

(5) Tzeltal (Mayan; Mexico)
/s-tʃ̃/uht/
POSS.3-stomach
'his stomach' (Polian 2006: 24)

Pre-/post-vocalic sequences in phonological words are also considered as syl-
lable margins, even if they belong to separate units syntactically or orthograph-
ically (6).

(6) Polish (Indo-European; Poland)
*z pstrągiem*
/spstroñjem/
‘with (the) trout’ (Jassem 2003: 103)

Syllable margins reported to occur only in recent loanwords or as a result of
variable phonetic processes, such as vowel elision in rapid speech, were not con-
sidered in the determination of canonical patterns, or included in the present
### 3 Syllable structure patterns in sample

analysis (the latter issue will be treated extensively in Chapter 6, which examines vowel reduction in the sample). Here “canonical” is used in the sense of syllable patterns which are regular and not reported to occur in variation with other patterns. For instance, /tk/ would not be characterized as a canonical onset in American English, because it is an optional, if for some words ubiquitous (Napoleão de Souza 2019), variant of a form which preserves the original vowel: *tequila* [tʰəkʰilə] ~ [tʰkʰilə].<fnref n="1" /> Returning to the issue of abstract models of the syllable versus observed patterns, when syllable margins were described in one way at the phonological level but reported as consistently exhibiting a different pattern at the “surface” level, the latter was taken to be representative of syllable patterns in the language. For example, sequences analyzed as clusters at an abstract level but which were invariably split by phonological epenthesis, as illustrated by the Maybrat example below, were not considered to be canonical clusters (example 7; see the following section for a further discussion of epenthesis).

(7) Maybrat (Maybrat-Koron; Indonesia)

An epenthetic vowel invariably occurs between two consonants in word-initial position.

/pnem/

[panem]

‘it is flat’ (Dol 2007: 35–36)

Sounds involving multiple articulations or which consist of phonetic sequences, such as labialized consonants, prenasalized stops, or diphthongs, present complications for determining canonical syllable patterns, which are traditionally expressed in segmental terms. Wherever the author has presented convincing language-internal evidence for the phonological unity of such sounds, I have considered them to be single segments for the purpose of syllable structure coding. The issue of complex segments will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 4, where I analyze the segmental inventory patterns in the language sample.

As described in §2.2, similar patterns observed in languages with large tautosyllabic obstruent clusters and those with syllabic obstruents led me to include the latter in the Highly Complex category, so long as syllabic obstruents were observed to result in word-marginal sequences of three obstruents or longer in those languages. However, syllabic obstruents were not explicitly coded as part of the onset or coda. Instead, Highly Complex patterns involving long tautosyllabic obstruent clusters and those involving syllabic obstruents were coded separately so that these patterns could be disambiguated if necessary in later analyses.

<footnote n="1">¹Moreover, in this case the much rarer pronunciation of [tʰəkʰilə] is still considered an acceptable variant by speakers.</footnote>
For languages with syllabic obstruents, the author's description of "true" tautosyllabic onset and coda patterns was taken to be canonical. Separately, the largest word-marginal consonant sequences occurring as a result of syllabic obstruents in those languages were coded as such but not considered to be maximal coda or onset structures.

It is important to note that while the presence of syllabic obstruents was a partial criterion in determining whether a language has Highly Complex syllable structure, the presence of syllabic nasals and liquids (where liquid is defined as a trill, tap/flap, or lateral approximant) was never used as a diagnostic for membership in this or any category. The reasoning behind this is related to how these patterns are described and analyzed in the language references. Recall that syllabic obstruents and large tautosyllabic obstruent clusters often co-occur in languages, and that it is also common for the same language to be analyzed as having either pattern, to the exclusion of the other, by different authors. This was the case for a number of languages in the sample, including Chipaya, Nimboran, Tashlhiyt, and Yine: all of these languages have been reported in some descriptions to have syllabic obstruents, and in others to have larger obstruent clusters. By comparison, only two languages were described as having syllabic nasals or liquids as an alternative analysis to larger tautosyllabic clusters (Georgian and Yine). This is despite the fact that syllabic nasals and liquids are much more commonly reported in the sample than syllabic obstruents (see §3.3.5). Nasals and liquids do not seem to be as susceptible as obstruents to ambiguous or competing interpretations with respect to syllability. This is perhaps not surprising, given the perceptual properties of nasals and liquids. The reported patterns justify separate treatment of syllabic nasals and liquids on one hand, and syllabic obstruents on the other, in the coding of canonical syllable patterns in the sample.

### 3.2.2 Status of inserted vowels

The Maybrat example in (8) brings up another important issue in the analysis of syllable structure, which is the status of inserted vowels. Compare the Maybrat example, reproduced in (8), with the examples from Camsá (9a–b).

(8) Maybrat (Maybrat-Karon; Indonesia)

An epenthetic vowel invariably occurs between two consonants in word-initial position.

/pnem/

[panem]

‘it is flat’ (Dol 2007: 35–36)
### 3 Syllable structure patterns in sample

#### (9) Camsá (isolate; Colombia)

"A nonphonemic transitional voicoid [ə] occurs between stop plus stop [...] Initial fricatives [...] have optional off-glide before nonfricative consonants at a different place of articulation."

a. /tkanije/
[təkanije]
'broken'

b. /ftseŋga/
[fʊtseŋga]
'black' (Howard 1967: 81)

There are several important differences between the descriptions of the Maybrat and Camsá examples. In the Maybrat example the vowel is described as epenthetic, while in the Camsá example it is described as a nonphonemic transitional vocoid or an off-glide. In Maybrat, the process is described as invariable, while in Camsá it is described, in the case of the off-glide, as optional. Finally, in Maybrat, the epenthesized vowel is transcribed as [a], while in Camsá it is transcribed as superscripted [ə] in one case and [u] in another. These differences in the descriptions and transcription conventions suggest different phenomena. This raises the question of whether the patterns in Maybrat and Camsá should be treated separately for the purposes of syllable structure analysis.

In a typological survey of reported inserted vowel patterns, Hall (2006) makes a distinction between epenthetic vowels and intrusive vowels. She argues that the motivations for the two types of inserted vowels are quite different. The function of epenthetic vowels is to provide a nucleus to repair marked or non-occurring syllable structures in a language; that is, it has the effect of producing syllable patterns that are already attested in the language. A textbook example of this kind of process is the adaptation of loanwords from one language into another; e.g. English *technostress* is borrowed into Japanese as *tekunosutoresu* because the consonant clusters and codas in the original form are not part of the sound pattern of the borrowing language (Kay 1995: 69). Hall states that epenthetic vowels tend to be "visible" to phonological processes, behaving like syllable nuclei for the purposes of stress assignment and other processes, and speakers are generally aware of their presence. For example, in Mono, epenthetic vowels occur to "repair" monomoraic lexical words: /ʒī/ > [īʒī] 'tooth' (Hall 2006: 6, citing Olson 2003).

By contrast, intrusive vowels are not structurally motivated but come about through natural processes of gestural retiming and overlap, and are simply an
acoustic effect of these transitions. For example, in Kekchi, an intrusive vowel identical in quality to the preceding vowel may appear within final clusters consisting of a glottal stop followed by a consonant: /poʔt/ > [poʔot] ‘blouse’ (Hall 2006: 7, citing Campbell 1974). This is analyzed not as the addition of a new vowel articulation, but as the offset of the vowel gesture carrying over the duration of the glottal stop articulation, which does not require an oral articulation, such that the effects of the vowel can still be heard between the glottal stop and the onset of the following consonant articulation. Hall states that intrusive vowels tend to be “invisible” to such phonological processes, and speakers are typically unaware of their presence, or if they are aware, view them as optional.

The properties described above – behavior with respect to phonological processes and speaker awareness – are for Hall the primary means of determining whether an inserted vowel is epenthetic or intrusive. She argues persuasively for the use of speaker intuition in making these determinations, giving several examples of cases in which the phonological behavior of a vocalic element matches the native speaker’s, rather than the fieldworker’s, intuitions about syllabicity. This is supported by growing evidence in the experimental literature that listeners are biased by the timing patterns of their own language when identifying the syllable patterns of another language (Kwon et al. 2017). However, while information regarding native speaker intuition is valuable, it is often unreported. Based on the typological patterns represented in her survey, Hall develops a set of additional features which tend to be associated with epenthesis and intrusion. Epenthetic vowels tend to have the following characteristics: (i) the vowel quality is fixed or copied from a neighboring vowel; (ii) the vowel occurs regardless of speech rate; and (iii) the vowel repairs a structure that is likely to be avoided through other processes in the same language. Intrusive vowels tend to have these characteristics: (i) the vowel quality is neutral, or influenced by the place of articulation of the surrounding consonants; (ii) the vowel is typically found in heterorganic clusters; (iii) the vowel is often optional, has variable duration and voicing, and may disappear as speech rate increases; and (iv) the vowel does not seem to have a repairing function (Hall 2006: 391).<fnref n="2" />

Returning to (8–9) above, we see that the Maybrat example falls under Hall’s definition of epenthetic vowels, while the Camsá example falls under her definition of intrusive vowels. Further descriptions by the authors support this view. Dol (2007: 36) presents instrumental evidence showing that epenthetic [a] is

<footnote n="2">²As noted by Browman & Goldstein (1992a: 53), epenthetic vowels may have their origin in the intrusive elements arising from gestural organization. Hall gives several examples of historical cases of vowel epenthesis that may have started with vowel intrusion and then phonologized; e.g. Irish Gaelic *gorm* > *gorəm* ‘blue’ (2006: 35).</footnote>
### 3 Syllable structure patterns in sample

as prominent as other vowels in the language. Meanwhile, examples given by Howard indicate that the transitional vocoid is not counted for the purposes of stress assignment. This suggests that the Maybrat example [panem] is best analyzed as a CV.CVC structure, while the Camsá examples [təˈkanipe] and [fʊˈtseŋga] are best analyzed as having initial onset clusters.

The matter of vowel intrusion is relevant to the issue of syllabic consonants as well. Recall the Cocopa example discussed in §2.2, reproduced below as (10).

(10) Cocopa (Cochimi-Yuman; USA and Mexico)
/ptʃxmukáp/
[pɪˈtʃxəˌmu.káp]

‘he embraced her’ (Crawford Jr 1966: 43)

Crawford proposes that some unstressed syllables in Cocopa may be entirely consonantal, consisting only of an onset or onset and coda, but with a predictable “murmur” vowel functioning as a phonetic peak in such cases (1966: 34). What is described as the murmur vowel here has properties of an intrusive vowel: its quality is determined by that of surrounding consonants, and it is transcribed as a superscript, suggesting brevity or an offglide status.

Similar descriptions of other languages in the sample suggest an association between intrusive or transitional elements and consonants analyzed as syllabic (e.g. in certain environments in Tashlhiyt; Dell & Elmedlaoui 2002). Hargus & Beavert (2006) list several languages in which arguments for consonant (specifically obstruent) syllabicity are rooted in the distribution of “epenthetic” vowels. Additionally, Bell (1978b: 185–186) reports that speakers are unaware of the short vocalic elements associated with syllabic obstruents in Koryak, similar to reports of speaker unawareness regarding intrusive vowels in consonant clusters. Hall notes crosslinguistic associations between vowel intrusion, aspiration (also analyzed as voiceless vowel intrusion), and syllabic consonants, and suggests that all of these phenomena are different acoustic manifestations of fundamentally similar processes of gestural overlap (2006: 413). This issue will be revisited in §3.4.3, when I discuss the phonetic properties of languages in the Highly Complex portion of the sample.

In coding for syllable structure patterns in the sample, wherever possible I used the diagnostics proposed in Hall (2006) to determine the status of reported inserted vowels.
### 3.2.3 Edges of categories

After syllable patterns in the sample were determined with reference to the above criteria, these patterns were recorded and coded for analysis. First, the syllable patterns were used to classify the languages into the four categories of syllable structure complexity as defined in Maddieson (2013b) and §2.2, and reproduced here:

**Simple:** languages in which the onset is maximally one C, and codas do not occur.

**Moderately Complex:** languages in which the onset is maximally two Cs, the second of which is a liquid or a glide; and/or the coda consists of maximally one C.

**Complex:** languages in which the maximal onset is two Cs, the second of which is a C other than a liquid or a glide, or three Cs, so long as all three are not obstruents; and/or the maximal coda consists of two Cs, or three Cs so long as all three are not obstruents.

**Highly Complex:** languages in which the maximal onset or coda consists of three obstruents, or four or more Cs of any kind; and/or in which syllabic obstruents occur, resulting in word-marginal sequences of three or more obstruents.

A common complication for typological work is that languages sometimes do not fall neatly into the categories defined by the researcher. Like languages themselves, linguistic features are dynamic and constantly changing form, however slowly or subtly. There is often some ambiguity at play when categorizing languages according to some structural feature, because a language may exhibit behavior characteristic of several categories. In this study I took advantage of such ambiguity in constructing the language sample in order to increase genealogical diversity or the representation of syllable structure complexity categories in some regions.

The Simple syllable structure pattern is crosslinguistically rare, so in some cases languages were admitted to the category despite having minor exceptions to canonical (C)V patterns. For example, several languages were categorized as having Simple syllable structure despite being reported to have codas in a small handful of lexical items (e.g. five words in Cavineña, Guillaume 2008: 31; two in Saaroa, Pan 2012: 32f). Two of the North American languages included in this category, Towa and Ute, can be argued not to have Simple syllable structure in the
### 3 Syllable structure patterns in sample

strictest definition of the term. In Towa, there are no complex onsets. Simple codas /f/ and /l/ occur in the language, but are rarely produced as such by speakers. For instance, word-final /f/, which always corresponds to Inverse suffix /-f/, is omitted from a phrase-medial noun stem unless it is followed by a vowel-initial pronominal prefix, in which case it is resyllabified as an onset (Yumitani 1998: 22–24). Coda /f/ may occur utterance-finally, but because the language is predominantly verb-final and this suffix attaches to nouns, the frequency of this pattern is extremely rare in natural discourse (Logan Sutton, p.c.).<fnref n="3" /> In Ute, syllable structure is almost entirely of the shape CV(V), but a recent process devoicing unstressed vowels in the language has resulted in some invariant codas and patterns that could be analyzed as sequences of oral consonants and glottal fricatives (Givón 2011: 20–23, 28). It would appear that Ute has until recently had Simple syllable structure, but is in the process of rapidly developing more complex syllable patterns. Though neither Towa nor Ute present uncontroversial cases of languages with Simple syllable structure, I judge their patterns to be close enough to justify their inclusion as such, thereby increasing the representation of North American languages in this category.

On similar grounds, Eastern Khanty was admitted to the Moderately Complex category. The syllable patterns of this language include occasional coda clusters which are always a result of derivation or inflection in the language. Typically when this happens, vowel epenthesis is employed “robustly and productively” such that most of these sequences are not realized as clusters (Filchenko 2007: 55). However, derived coda clusters with a sonorant preceding a homorganic stop (e.g. *lol-t* ‘crack, dent-*pl*’) are sometimes retained as such. The author states that the probability of such consonant clusters occurring is extremely low. As a complex coda, this pattern falls under the definition of Complex syllable structure, but since its status in the language is extremely marginal, I place this language into the Moderately Complex category.

Yine was admitted to the Highly Complex category despite being a somewhat ambiguous case. Two major descriptions of Yine (Hanson 2010; Matteson 1965) describe the occurrence of biconsonantal and triconsonantal onset clusters in the language. Both describe onset clusters as being relatively unrestricted: “[c]onsonant clusters in Yine show enough range in attested combinations, both word-initially and word-internally, to suggest that there are no sonority-based restrictions imposed on them” (Hanson 2010: 27). Examples of biconsonantal onsets are plentiful and include combinations as varied as /tʃk/, /sp/, and /ns/. Matteson

<footnote n="3">³In a 244-word text included in Yumitani (1998), there are no examples of phonetic codas in Towa.</footnote>
(1965: 24) gives few examples of triconsonantal onsets and states that the very low frequency of these shapes had decreased in comparison to a count made a decade previously. However, Hanson, writing 45 years later, writes that “words beginning with three consonants in a sequence are very common” (2010: 27). She describes these clusters as resulting from the affixation of a Class 2 pronominal prefix (/n-/, /p-/, /t-/, /w-/, /h-/) to a stem beginning with a biconsonantal cluster; e.g. /p-knoja-te/ ‘your tortoise’ (2010: 26). Other examples given include /pcr/, /nmtʃ/, and /ntʃk/, but there are no explicit examples of three-obstruent clusters listed. Whether this is due to non-occurrence is unclear, and the conflicting descriptions of the frequency of triconsonantal onsets does not help shed light on the issue. Nevertheless, I include this language in the Highly Complex category to increase representation of the category in the South American portion of the sample, acknowledging that it may be a very marginal case.

### 3.2.4 Coding

The analyses described in §§3.2.1–3.2.3 were conducted as part of the process of constructing the language sample (Chapter 2). After the sample was constructed, more specific information on syllable structure was collected for each language, and coded as described below:

* Size of maximal onset: in number of Cs

* Size of maximal coda: in number of Cs

* Onset obligatory: Yes, No

* Coda obligatory: Yes, No

* Vocalic nucleus patterns: Short vowels, Long vowels, Diphthongs, Vowel sequences

* Syllabic consonant patterns: Nasal, Liquid, or Obstruent

* Size of maximal word-marginal sequences with syllabic obstruents: in number of Cs

* Predictability of syllabic consonants: Phonemic, Predictable from word/-consonantal context, or Varies with CV sequence

* Morphological constituency of maximal syllable margin: Morpheme-internal, Morphologically complex, or Both patterns occur

* Morphological pattern of syllabic consonants: Lexical items, Grammatical items, Both

Additionally, more detailed information on syllable patterns, restrictions on cluster patterns, syllable type frequency data, and the phonetic characteristics of clusters was gathered for the Highly Complex portion of the sample.
### 3 Syllable structure patterns in sample

An example of the syllable structure coding for Ket, a language with Complex syllable structure, can be found below (11).

<table><tr><td>(11) Ket (Yeniseian; Russia)</td></tr><tr><td>Size of maximal onset:</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>Size of maximal coda:</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Onset obligatory:</td><td>No</td></tr><tr><td>Coda obligatory:</td><td>No</td></tr><tr><td>Vocalic nucleus patterns:</td><td>Short vowels</td></tr><tr><td>Syllabic consonant patterns:</td><td>Nasals</td></tr><tr><td>Size of maximal word-marginal sequences with syllabic obstruents:</td><td>N/A</td></tr><tr><td>Predictability of syllabic consonants:</td><td>Predictable from word/consonantal context</td></tr><tr><td>Morphological constituency of maximal syllable margin:</td><td>Morphologically complex (Onsets), Both patterns (Codas)</td></tr><tr><td>Morphological pattern of syllabic consonants:</td><td>Grammatical items</td></tr></table>

All syllable structure coding for the language sample, including illustrative examples and notes on specific onset and coda patterns, can be found in Appendix B.

## 3.3 Results for language sample

In this section I present analyses of general patterns of maximal onsets, codas, and syllabic consonants in the language sample. In §3.3.1 I present the maximal onset and coda sizes in the data, and discuss maximal word-marginal patterns in the languages which have syllabic obstruents. In §3.3.2, I briefly examine the relationship between onset and coda complexity. In §3.3.3 the relationship between syllable structure complexity and obligatoriness of syllable margins is investigated. In §3.3.4 and §3.3.5 the patterns of vocalic nuclei and syllabic consonants, respectively, are presented and analyzed with respect to syllable structure complexity. §3.3.6 is a longer subsection which addresses the issue of morphological constituency in maximal syllable margins and syllabic consonants in the data.

### 3.3.1 Maximal onset and coda sizes

The distribution of maximal onset and coda patterns in the sample, by number of consonants, can be found in Figures 3.1–3.2.
<figure><img src="image_13.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3.1: Maximal onset sizes in sample.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3.2: Maximal coda sizes in sample.</figcaption></figure>

The data presented in Figures 3.1 and 3.2 are for onset and coda patterns determined through the procedure described in §3.2.1. They do not include the largest word-marginal patterns which occur in languages with syllabic obstruents. There are four languages in the sample which are reported to have syllabic obstruents resulting in Highly Complex patterns at word margins.<fnref n="4" /> These patterns are presented in Table 3.1, along with the reported maximal onset and coda patterns in the languages.

In Tashlhiyt, the size of maximal word-marginal obstruent strings cannot be determined, because there are many examples of words consisting entirely of obstruents in this language (12).

<footnote n="4">⁴Additionally, Tohono O’odham has syllabic obstruents, but only in independent grammatical particles consisting of a single consonant (determiners and conjunctives). These are not reported to be phonologically bound to adjacent words. Therefore I do not include Tohono O’odham in Table 3.1.</footnote>
### 3 Syllable structure patterns in sample

<table><caption>Table 3.1: Languages in Highly Complex category with syllabic obstruents. Maximal reported onsets and codas are given in first two columns. The sizes of the maximal word-marginal obstruent strings which occur as the result of syllabic obstruents are given in last two columns.</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Language</th><th rowspan="2">Maximal onset</th><th rowspan="2">Maximal coda</th><th colspan="2">Maximal obstruent string</th></tr><tr><th>word-initial</th><th>word-final</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Cocopa</td><td>4</td><td>3</td><td>5</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Semai</td><td>2</td><td>1</td><td>4</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Tashlhiyt</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td colspan="2">(words without vowels)</td></tr><tr><td>Tehuelche</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>3</td><td>&gt;3</td></tr></tbody></table>

(12) Tashlhiyt (Afro-Asiatic; Morocco)

tftktst:

tf.tk.tst:

‘you took it off (F)’ (Ridouane 2008: 332)

In Tehuelche, the reference indicates that sequences of up to six consonants may occur word-finally, but the only illustrative example of a pattern this size given is (13).

(13) Tehuelche (Chonan; Argentina)

k̂tʃaʔʃp̂k'n

k.tʃaʔʃp.ʃ.k'n

‘it is being washed’

(Fernández Garay & Hernández 2006: 13)

This example includes a nasal which may be syllabic (syllable peaks in CC syllables are not marked by the authors). It is clear from the language description that long obstruent sequences come about when syllabic consonants are strung together, but unclear as to what the upper limit on the size of these is. Word-final sequences of at least four obstruents are attested (14).

(14) Tehuelche (Chonan; Argentina)

ma:leʃpʃk

ma:leʃp.ʃ.k

‘they steal’

(Fernández Garay & Hernández 2006: 63)
### 3.3.2 Relationship between onset and coda complexity

Here I present an analysis similar to the one presented in §2.2 for the Complex portion of the Maddieson (2013b) sample. The languages of the sample used in this book are distributed according to their maximal onset and coda patterns.

<table><caption>Table 3.2: Languages of sample distributed according to maximal onset and coda size.</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Number of Cs in coda</th><th colspan="8">Number of Cs in onset</th></tr><tr><th>One</th><th>Two</th><th>Three</th><th>Four</th><th>Five</th><th>Six</th><th>Seven</th><th>Eight</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>None</td><td>20</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>1</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>One</td><td>21</td><td>12</td><td>5</td><td>1</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>Two</td><td>7</td><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>Three</td><td>1</td><td>4</td><td>2</td><td>4</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>Four</td><td>3</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>2</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>Five</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>1</td><td>-</td><td>1</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Six</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>1</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr></tbody></table>

Interestingly, it is common for languages with large clusters at one syllable margin to also exhibit large clusters at the other syllable margin in their canonical patterns. Roughly half of languages in the sample which have a maximal cluster of four or more consonants at one syllable margin will have a similarly large maximal cluster at the other syllable margin. It is striking that *all* languages in the sample with maximal onsets of five or more consonants (Georgian, Itelmen, and Polish) also have maximal codas of five consonants. Meanwhile, the bottom left and top right corners of Table 3.2 are sparsely populated; that is, there are relatively few languages with very large maximal clusters at one syllable margin and very small maximal clusters (or none at all) at the other margin. A similar pattern can be observed in Table 2.2 in §2.2, which used a larger sample of 147 languages. Speaking from a strictly distributional point of view, there is no obvious motivation for this pattern. If we consider onset and coda structures to be independent structures, then we would expect to see the full range of possible variation in their combination crosslinguistically. This point will be revisited in §3.5 and again in Chapter 8.
### 3.3.3 Syllable structure complexity and obligatoriness of syllable margins

Blevins (2006: 336) notes another crosslinguistic pattern linking onset and coda structures: languages with only open syllables tend to have optional onsets. In Table 3.3 I examine this relationship in the current language sample. There are some languages in which optional onsets may be reported for the canonical syllable structure, but regular and obligatory consonant epenthesis (usually of a glottal stop or fricative) occurs to produce onsets in all “surface” forms. In the analysis below, I consider such languages as having obligatory onsets.

<table><caption>Table 3.3: Languages in sample distributed according to occurrence of codas and obligatoriness of onsets.</caption><thead><tr><th><i>N</i> languages</th><th>Codas occur?</th><th>Onset obligatory?</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>14</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td></tr><tr><td>62</td><td>Y</td><td>N</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>N</td><td>Y</td></tr><tr><td>22</td><td>N</td><td>N</td></tr></tbody></table>

The relationship reported by Blevins is upheld in the current sample. Of the 24 languages with only open syllables (no codas), only two are reported to have obligatory onsets. Obligatory onsets are more common in languages with coda structures (14/76). The two languages in the sample with obligatory onsets and only open syllables are Hadza (Simple) and Yine (Highly Complex). It should also be noted that the Oykangand dialect of Kunjen used here is reported to have obligatory codas. Kunjen is argued to have very marginal onset patterns, with onsets occurring in interjections and sentence-initially in a just a few lexical items (Sommer 1969; 1970; 1981, though see Dixon 1970 for an opposing view).<fnref n="5" /> Therefore Kunjen shows a very similar pattern to Hadza and Yine, except that the syllable margins are reversed.

The analysis above motivated a more general examination of obligatory syllable margin patterns in the language sample with respect to syllable structure complexity (Table 3.4).

<footnote n="5">⁵According to Sommer's analysis, Kunjen is a rare example of a language without phonological CV syllables. Another language argued not to have phonological CV syllables is Arrernte, a Pama-Nyungan language of central Australia (cf. Breen & Pensalfini 1999), though Anderson (2000) reports a canonical surface syllable structure of (C)(C)V(C) for Western Arrernte.</footnote>
<table><caption>Table 3.4: Languages in sample with obligatory syllable margins.</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="4">Syllable structure complexity</th></tr><tr><th>S<br>N = 24</th><th>MC<br>N = 26</th><th>C<br>N = 25</th><th>HC<br>N = 25</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Onset obligatory</td><td>Hadza<br>Ute<br>(2)</td><td>Kambaata<br>Karok<br>Lao<br>Pacoh<br>(4)</td><td>Koho<br>Lepcha<br>Mangarrayi<br>(3)</td><td>Bench<br>Nuu-chah-nulth<br>Semai<br>Thompson<br>Tohono O'odham<br>Yakima Sahaptin<br>Yine<br>(7)</td></tr><tr><td>Coda obligatory</td><td>—</td><td>—</td><td>—</td><td>Kunjen<br>(1)</td></tr></tbody></table>

Obligatory syllable margins are a minor pattern in the language sample, occurring in only 17 languages, but this feature is most common in languages with Highly Complex syllable structure, occurring in roughly one-third (8/25) of those languages. This feature is least common in languages with Simple syllable structure (2/24 languages). The pattern in the Highly Complex category is statistically significant when compared against the patterns in the other three categories combined ($p = 0.03$ in Fisher's exact test). This association between syllable structure complexity and obligatoriness of syllable margins has, to my knowledge, not previously been reported.

Obligatory syllable margins are more common in some areas than others. Five of the languages in Table 3.4 are from Southeast Asia & Oceania. North America is also heavily represented, accounting for another six languages altogether, including four of the languages with obligatory syllable margins from the Highly Complex group. It should further be noted that most of the North American languages with obligatory syllable margins in the Highly Complex group are from the Pacific Northwest (Nuu-chah-nulth, Thompson, and Yakima Sahaptin), so areal factors may be at play. Nevertheless, the Highly Complex pattern in Table 3.4 is not entirely areal in nature, as it includes languages from Africa, Southeast Asia & Oceania, South America, and Australia & New Guinea.

Interestingly, the description of Itelmen (Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Highly Complex) suggests that this language, too, had obligatory onsets at some point in its
### 3 Syllable structure patterns in sample

history: morphophonological processes suggest that present-day vowel-initial syllables were at one time initiated by a glottal stop (Georg & Volodin 1999: 48).

### 3.3.4 Vocalic nucleus patterns

Vocalic nucleus patterns have until now been excluded from the discussion of syllable patterns, as they are not considered in the definitions of syllable structure complexity used here. However, it is important to note that vocalic nucleus patterns can also exhibit different degrees of complexity. In Table 3.5 I present a very general analysis of these patterns in the sample, showing the distribution of simple and complex vocalic nuclei by syllable structure complexity.

<table><caption>Table 3.5: Vocalic nucleus patterns in language sample, by syllable structure complexity.</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Languages with:</th><th colspan="4">Syllable Structure Complexity</th></tr><tr><th>S</th><th>MC</th><th>C</th><th>HC</th></tr><tr><th></th><th>N = 24</th><th>N = 26</th><th>N = 25</th><th>N = 25</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Simple vocalic nuclei only</th><td>12</td><td>9</td><td>9</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><th>Complex vocalic nuclei<sup>a</sup></th><td>12</td><td>17</td><td>16</td><td>16</td></tr></tbody></table>

Simple vocalic nuclei – those consisting of a single short vowel – occur in every language. The first row of Table 3.5 shows the number of languages in each complexity category for which this is the only vocalic nucleus pattern that occurs. Languages in which complex vocalic nuclei occur in addition to simple vocalic nuclei are shown in the second row. For the sake of simplicity I have collapsed three different kind of complex vocalic nucleus patterns in the analysis here. A language is counted as having long vowels if it has contrastive vowel length, but not if it has predictable vowel lengthening, e.g. a longer variant preceding a voiced coda. Diphthongs and tautosyllabic vowel sequences are difficult to disambiguate from one another, as their analyses by different authors may vary; however, vowel sequences reported here as syllable nuclei are those explicitly shown by the author to belong to one syllable, much like a diphthong. That is, this figure does not include cases of hiatus, in which the two vowels in a sequence belong to different syllables.

Table 3.5 shows that complex vocalic nuclei are less likely to occur in languages with Simple syllable structure than in languages from the other categories.

<footnote><sup>a</sup>(long vowels, diphthongs, and/or vowel sequences)</footnote>
gories. This suggests that the potential for more syllable types in languages with
more complex syllable structure may be not only a function of larger canonical
syllable margins, but also of greater diversity in syllable nucleus patterns. Nev-
ertheless, the analysis above is too coarse to draw strong conclusions about vo-
calic nucleus patterns and syllable structure complexity. The issue of contrastive
vowel length will be treated in greater detail in Chapter 4, along with contrastive
nasalization, voicing, and glottalization patterns in the vowel inventories of the
sample.

3.3.5 *Syllabic consonants*

In this section I investigate patterns of syllabic consonants in the data. Recall that the previous literature suggests two competing predictions for the relationship between syllable complexity and the presence of syllabic consonants. Isačenko’s (1939) phonological typology predicts that “vocalic” languages, which tend to have simpler syllable structure, will be more likely to develop syllabic consonants, and specifically syllabic sonorants. Meanwhile, Bell (1978b) notes that syllabic consonants, including syllabic obstruents, often come about through vowel reduction processes, which are also known to produce the clusters characteristic of languages with more complex syllable structure. On the basis of the latter observation, in §3.1.2 I formulated a hypothesis that languages with more complex syllable structure are more likely to have syllabic consonant patterns.

Here I analyze languages in which the syllabic consonants are reported as in-
variant patterns. Most often, the syllabicity of these consonants is predictable
from the surrounding consonantal and/or word environment, as illustrated by
(15). Less frequently, syllabic consonants are analyzed as separate phonemes
which are contrastive with their non-syllabic counterparts (16a–b).

(15) Itelmen (Chukotko-Kamchatkan; Russia)

A word-initial alveolar or bilabial nasal stop preceding another
consonant is realized as syllabic.

/mʔim/

[mʔim]

‘blood’

(Georg & Volodin 1999: 16)

(16) Ewe (Atlantic-Congo; Ghana, Togo)

a. jɔʔm̥

‘call me’

b. kampé

‘scissors’ (Ameka 1991: 38)
### 3 Syllable structure patterns in sample

Three languages are excluded from the current analysis: Chipaya, Nimboran (both from the Complex category), and Yine (from the Highly Complex category). For all three of these languages, there are conflicting reports regarding the occurrence of syllabic consonants, sometimes from the same author.<fnref n="6" /> For example, Matteson gives the following description for Yine, which seems to suggest that consonants in complex onsets both belong to a syllable with a vocalic nucleus and are simultaneously themselves syllabic:

> We number the consonants of the syllable, beginning with the consonant that immediately precedes the nuclear vowel: +C³ +C² +C¹V. In the positions of consonants C² and C³ occur syllabic allophones of the consonants. Thus the syllable is a complex unit consisting of from one to three syllabic units. (Matteson 1965: 23)

Because of the conflicting descriptions of these languages, I opted to exclude them from the current analysis. Georgian and Tashlhiyt also have conflicting descriptions with respect to the occurrence of syllabic consonants, but in both of these cases experimental evidence has been presented to support one analysis over another. The articulatory and acoustic experiments in Ridouane (2008) and Goldstein et al. (2007) support a syllabic consonant analysis for Tashlhiyt, while native speaker intuition reported in Chitoran (1999) does not support an analysis of syllabic sonorants for Georgian. It is interesting to note that all of the languages with conflicting descriptions – those discussed here and the ones mentioned in footnote 6 – are from the Complex and Highly Complex categories. This recalls the observation noted previously, in which transitions in consonant clusters on the one hand and syllabic consonants on the other may have similar motivations and acoustic manifestations.

The syllabic consonant patterns reported for the languages of the sample can be found in Table 3.6. There is a steadily increasing trend in the proportion of languages with these patterns as syllable structure complexity increases: only two

<footnote n="6">⁶There are a few other languages for which there are suggestions of alternate analyses. The dialect of Sahaptin analyzed here, Yakima, is argued not to have syllabic consonants by Hargus & Beavert (2006) on the basis of distributional and phonological behavior of consonants in sequences. However, it should be noted that Minthorn (2005) argues for syllabic consonants, including obstruents, in the closely related dialect of Umatilla Sahaptin, on the basis of speaker intuition and acoustic analysis. Additionally, one description of Alamblak lists an example of a word consisting entirely of obstruents: *kpt* 'basket type' (Edmiston & Edmiston 2003: 1); however, no further elaboration is given, and obstruents are not included in the description of syllabic consonants in Bruce (1984), so it is unclear whether syllabic obstruents are an issue of debate for this language. Finally, for Itelmen, Volodin (1976: 42) gives transcriptions of lexical items consisting entirely of obstruents (*tʃkptʃ* 'spoon'). In a later reference, he describes only syllabic sonorants in the language (Georg & Volodin 1999).</footnote>
<table><caption>Table 3.6: Presence of invariant syllabic consonants in language sample, by syllable structure complexity. Chipaya (Complex), Nimboran (Complex), and Yine (Highly Complex) excluded.</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Languages with:</th><th colspan="4">Syllable Structure Complexity</th></tr><tr><th>S</th><th>MC</th><th>C</th><th>HC</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Syllabic consonants<br>of any kind</td><td>2</td><td>6</td><td>5</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td><i>Syllabic nasals</i></td><td>2</td><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td><i>Syllabic liquids</i></td><td>-</td><td>2</td><td>1</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td><i>Syllabic obstruents</i></td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>5</td></tr><tr><td>No syllabic<br>consonants</td><td>22</td><td>20</td><td>18</td><td>13</td></tr></tbody></table>

of languages with Simple syllable structure are reported to have syllabic consonants, compared to 11 of the languages in the Highly Complex category. The trend in the Highly Complex category is statistically significant when compared to the trends in the other three categories combined ($p = 0.01$ in Fisher's exact test).

Examining the particular kinds of syllabic consonants represented, the patterns are similar to what is reported in Bell (1978b). Most languages with syllabic consonants have syllabic nasals, and languages with syllabic obstruents are rare. While languages from all four categories have syllabic nasals and most have syllabic liquids, syllabic obstruents are only reported for languages in the Highly Complex category. This is not a remnant of the way the Highly Complex category is defined: recall that languages with syllabic obstruents are categorized as Highly Complex only if these structures participate in word-marginal sequences of three obstruents or more. It is striking that no languages with simpler syllable structure are reported to have syllabic obstruents. Even if the three languages excluded from the previous analysis were included here, the distribution of syllabic obstruents would be among two languages with Complex syllable structure and six languages with Highly Complex syllable structure.

It should also be noted that three of the languages with syllabic obstruents (Cocopa, Semai, Tashlhiyt) are reported to also have both syllabic nasals and syllabic liquids. Tehuelche does not have syllabic liquids. Tohono O'odham is the only language which has syllabic obstruents but not syllabic sonorant consonants. This indicates that the trend in Table 3.6 – by which Highly Complex