Syllabification In Language Essay

1. Abstract

The empirical focus of this essay is on the theory of CV phonology to discuss syllabification in terms of Maximum onset first principle, sonority generalisation theory as well vowel epenthesis.

Keywords: CV phonology, CV syllables, Hindi, Urdu, onset first principle, epenthesis, sonority generalization principle.

2. Introduction

India where Hindi is spoken has very old links with the Arab world. Having grown up in a home where half my family has Hindi origin and the other half Arabic it is interesting to identify similarity in the two. Hindi is written using more Sanskrit words and Urdu is written using more Arabic and Persian words. Urdu is spoken by at least 50 million people in more than 10 countries (Hussain,

Literature review

In some languages, syllable weight depends exclusively on vowel length, while in others; coda consonants add weight to syllables. The paper compares the presentation of maximum onset principle (MOP) in Urdu and Hindi and Syllabification which is a process that associates a linear string of segments with a syllable structure (Goldsmith,1990 ).

An analysis has been done in which two major principles related to syllabification namely Maximal Onset Principle and Sonority Sequence Principle that have been used. (Bokhari, S.

Ohala claims that the generalizations relating to the phenomenon are best captured in Figure 6 found in data analysis below.

Figure 11

The following are generally accepted as universal constraints on syllabification.

The Sonority Sequencing Principle (Kiparsky (1979), Steriade (1982)) requires a syllable to have one syllable peak, edged by increasingly less sonorous melodies stretching up to the syllable margins. Refer to figure 7 below in data analysis. The Onset First Principle (Ciements and Keyser (1983), also Selkirk (1982: 359)) Syllable-initial consonants are maximized to the extent consistent with the syllable structure conditions of the language in question. Next the syllable-final consonants are maximized to the extent consistent with the syllable structure conditions of the language in question. (Napoli, D. 1996).

The Hindi syllable as documented by Ohala state that Hindi monosyllabic words permit up to two consonants initially with C1 containing a stop, nasal, or fricative and C2 a glide. In final position they allow two-consonant clusters of either a fricative followed by a stop or a nasal followed by a homorganic stop or fricative. (Ohala 1983) and (Pandey