Syllables

[zelos]

I must ask, Phonotactics/Syllable structures, have anyone of you guys ever heard of a language that differ how syllable structures are done depending on their location in the word? As words starts with a specific construction of syllable (or syllables) but then middle/last differ from that one?

[Soap]

Proto-Oceanic was CVCCV, I believe, with all C's optional. In other words, you could have a cluster of two consonants in the middle of the word, but no consonants at the end. Some of the older stages of Japanese (as well as we can reconstruct by looking at kanji-only transcriptions of it) seem to have allowed initial vowels, but never two vowels in the middle of the word.

Some languages in Southeast Asia have "major syllables" and "minor syllables", where the major syllables (usually only one per word) come at the end, whereas minor syllables come at the beginning of the word and must end in a vowel, and are sometimes spoken so quickly they just sound like consonants with or without lip rounding.

Is that what you were asking or am I misunderstanding completely?

[zelos]

Not quite because like that I think it falls more under phonotactic such as no-two-vowels-next-to-each-other.

But one wrote in a conlang That initial word syllable was either CCV, CV or V (Which I would somply say CCV with consonants are optional) then saying that no consonant or vowel may be removed, which makes no sense to me considering he already showed in his writting that the consonants are being removed/optional. then that middle/end syllables were CV with yet another addition of the end may be either V or C.

all of it which to my eyes would be summerized into CCVC syllable structure as a whole to include all of it then you can have various rules under. but he also included such thigns as derivational, inflectional and compound words may go against what he said was the rules.

My question is if there was anything remotely similar in real life because to me it sounds like shit and more.

[Tropylium]

Finnish natively (approximately, anyway) only allows CCC clusters between the first two syllables. Onset clusters generally don't exist elsewhere either (but ekstra probably needs to be syllabified eks·tra; and since pretty much all initial clusters are loans anyway, this issue really takes itself back to English, Latin etc.)

IIRC there are cases where coda consonants are only allowed word-finally, so there are no clusters, but CVC, CVCVC, CVCVCVC … are still possible.

Also, having different vowel sets for initial/stress'd and subsequent/unstress'd syllables is very common.

[Jipí]

http://benung.nfshost.com/files/frequency.pdf has some information from which you could certainly deduce information on the syllabification of my conlang.

[zelos]

I wasnt much aiming at vowels etc

Finnish natively (approximately, anyway) only allows CCC clusters between the first two syllables.

Isnt this though a bit like spanish o/a at the end of nearly all nouns/adjectives?

just like in english only works with "str-","spl-","spr-" etc in the begining of a syllable and most commonly is only found in the begining of short words.

But non the less the general syllable is one which encompasses all even if one kind has a higher tendency to be at a specific position because after all compound words do popup and suddenly "initial one"s are found in the middle of the word.

"Manstrengths" if we had that word would be phonotacticly accaptable even though it isnt a word and str is msot likely in the front

[Nortaneous]

I wasnt much aiming at vowels etc

Finnish natively (approximately, anyway) only allows CCC clusters between the first two syllables.

Isnt this though a bit like spanish o/a at the end of nearly all nouns/adjectives?

Wait, what?

What he's saying is that Finnish allows CVCCCV, but not CVCVCCCV, CVCVCVCCCV, or anything else in that general pattern.

[zelos]

I wasnt much aiming at vowels etc

Finnish natively (approximately, anyway) only allows CCC clusters between the first two syllables.

Isnt this though a bit like spanish o/a at the end of nearly all nouns/adjectives?

Wait, what?

What he's saying is that Finnish allows CVCCCV, but not CVCVCCCV, CVCVCVCCCV, or anything else in that general pattern.

so if finnish people take a CV word and a CVCCCV word to create a compound it will not be CVCVCCCV?

[Tropylium]

No, this is for single words, not compounds. Compounds skip a whole lot of other rules too — vowel harmony, clustering, etc. I would be surprized to hear of a language where compounding normally (ie. outside of fossilized compounds) causes distant syllable shape changes.

Compare English: a single root never has /aʊ/ twice in a ro, but downtown has no problem with such a shape.

Modern Finnish does have CVCVCCCV words (like valenssi) but they're all newish loanwords (some could be coinages, but I can't think of any).

As for English str-, are extra, instrument syllabified as ex·tra, ins·tru·ment or ek·stra, in·stru·ment?

[Nortaneous]

Compare English: a single root never has /aʊ/ twice in a ro

Is there an actual rule behind that, or is that just a coincidence?

As for English str-, are extra, instrument syllabified as ex·tra, ins·tru·ment or ek·stra, in·stru·ment?

My guess would be the first pair. The /t/ in extra is affricated, and I think the /ɪ/ in instrument is clipped.

[Travis B.]

As for English str-, are extra, instrument syllabified as ex·tra, ins·tru·ment or ek·stra, in·stru·ment?

My guess would be the first pair. The /t/ in extra is affricated, and I think the /ɪ/ in instrument is clipped.

To me at least, the latter pair more fits how I perceive their syllabification.

[Rui]

As for English str-, are extra, instrument syllabified as ex·tra, ins·tru·ment or ek·stra, in·stru·ment?

My guess would be the first pair. The /t/ in extra is affricated, and I think the /ɪ/ in instrument is clipped.

I agree with Travis, my guess is more towards the second. Are you saying you affricate /t/ syllable initially before /r/, but not in /str/ onsets? o.o

[bulbaquil]

I parse extra, instrument as the latter.

I do affricate the /t/, but I tend to do this in all str-words anyway, with the affrication of the /t/ affecting the /s/, e.g. "strike" is [ɕtɕɹaɪk].

[Lyanna]

Compare English: a single root never has /aʊ/ twice in a ro

Is there an actual rule behind that, or is that just a coincidence?

Well, there's "kowtow." True, it's a loanword, but according to http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=kowtow it's been used in English since 1804. If the double-/aʊ/ thing were a hard and fast rule, wouldn't it be assimilated by now?

[Ser]

I wasnt much aiming at vowels etc

Finnish natively (approximately, anyway) only allows CCC clusters between the first two syllables.

Isnt this though a bit like spanish o/a at the end of nearly all nouns/adjectives?

I honestly don't know what you mean here, but Spanish is actually an example for the kind of language you're looking for. While it allows the first syllable to be (C)(C)V(C)(C), the final syllable can't have a final cluster of two consonants, thus (C)(C)V(C). Some Arabic dialects (e.g. Christian Baghdadi Arabic, IIRC) have the same thing.

[Richard W]

Compare English: a single root never has /aʊ/ twice in a ro

Well, there's "kowtow."

And powwow.

[cromulent]

I must ask, Phonotactics/Syllable structures, have anyone of you guys ever heard of a language that differ how syllable structures are done depending on their location in the word? As words starts with a specific construction of syllable (or syllables) but then middle/last differ from that one?

AFAICT, Arabic only allows true consonant clusters (as opposed to trans-syllabic consonant sequences) in the coda of word-final syllables.

[Jipí]

Loans. They don't necessarily adhere to the phonotactic rules of the language that imported them, nor are they always fully assimilated, even if they have existed in the host language for some time. Otherwise you could state as well that German never actually lost [θ], because it's right there, e.g. in Thriller, Thinktank, Thread. Also, powwow and kowtow are kind of reduplications, or could at least be analyzed as such. Special cases, I guess. Also note that English would look a lot more Germanic if all loans ever would've been nativized except for the respectively most recent ones.

[Ser]

I must ask, Phonotactics/Syllable structures, have anyone of you guys ever heard of a language that differ how syllable structures are done depending on their location in the word? As words starts with a specific construction of syllable (or syllables) but then middle/last differ from that one?

AFAICT, Arabic only allows true consonant clusters (as opposed to trans-syllabic consonant sequences) in the coda of word-final syllables.

Only some dialects however, such as Cairene.

[TomHChappell]

I must ask, Phonotactics/Syllable structures, have anyone of you guys ever heard of a language that differ how syllable structures are done depending on their location in the word? As words starts with a specific construction of syllable (or syllables) but then middle/last differ from that one?

Maybe I remember wrong or misunderstood in the first place, but I think Polish's rule is something like:
One-syllable words: (C)(C)V(C)(C)
First syllable of two-syllable or longer words: (C)(C)V(C)
Last syllable of two-syllable or longer words: (C)V(C)(C)
Internal syllable of three-syllable or longer words: (C)V(C)

(It might not have been Polish.)

There is probably some rule limiting vowel-clusters in a word. If it's not too strict you could have an open syllable followed by an onset-less syllable and get a vowel-cluster that wasn't "tautosyllabic".

[Richard W]

Polish words can easily start with 4 consonants, e.g. pstry and there can be 4 consonants between vowels, e.g. abstrakt or even 5, e.g. skąpstwo. There is actually a 5-consonant onset, as mpstw-, but I can't lay my hands on an example.

[Astraios]

French can sometimes have five between vowels: exploitation has /ksplw/.

[Jipí]

German: Herkunftswörterbuch (4C-1C; all-native for 'etymologic dictionary')

Edit: herkunftsgleich (4C-2C; 'being of the same origin') has even one more German allows up to 4 consonants in codas, and up to 3 in onsets.

[Cedh]

German: Herkunftswörterbuch (4C-1C; all-native for 'etymologic dictionary')

Edit: herkunftsgleich (4C-2C; 'being of the same origin') has even one more German allows up to 4 consonants in codas, and up to 3 in onsets.

Ernststraße (a reasonably common street name, based on the name Ernst, which can be used both as a male personal name or as a surname) has the full set of 4+3 consonants: /ɛʁnst.ʃtʁaːsə/

[Jipí]

I pronounce that [ɛɐ̯nʃːtʁaːsə], though, which reduces it to 4 consonants, however one of them geminated