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From: reilly@iuvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Double 'R'
Message-ID: <7100022@iuvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-Nov-85 22:42:00 EST
Article-I.D.: iuvax.7100022
Posted: Wed Nov 27 22:42:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Nov-85 06:36:58 EST
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Nf-From: iuvax!reilly    Nov 27 22:42:00 1985


	Perhaps it is an ad hoc move to claim that /s/ is syllabic in
English.  But that still does not explain what the /s/ is doing
there in the first place.  What I mean is that if one accepts the
Sonority Hierarchy as defining the canonical syllable as an increase
up to the vocalic nucleus and a decrease in sonority (by sonority
hierarchy, i mean stop < low fricative < high fricative (eg /s/) <
nasal < liquid < glide (r,y,w) < vowel constitutes a hierachy of
sonority--except for nasals, this corresponds basically to how open
your mouth is!), then you have to face the question:  what is the
s doing there in words like sky, scrunch, etc.  Also homorganic
nasal clusters common in Bantu, like ntaa in KiRundi.

	I am not speaking lightly of the sonority hierarchy.  I have performed
a statistical analysis of a syllabified computer readable dictionary of
English and found that onsets are much more constrained phonetically/
phonologically than codas.  The s IS a stable, easy to maintain sound.
It also packs a lot of audibility.  It forms a good phonetic contrast
with the following stop.  Basically something one typically finds at
the beginning of a syllable is a big difference of sonority, eg stop
followed by a vowel, hardly EVER a stop followed by a fricative.
I could go on and on.  Anyway, I agree with you that Hopper is making
an ad hoc move.  But so what.  The /s/ still needs some explanation.
Furthermore, the notion of "syllabicity" is murky insofar as it is
solely based speaker's intuitions, at least as Alan Bell defines it.
Therefore I wouldn't buy your Spanish intuitions, and second I wouldn't
care a whole lot about intuitions in the first place, since they
are non-quantifiable and wouldn't help tell me what the /s/ is doing there.
Such intuitions are probably based on the timing of the acoustic events.
Selkirk has recently written a very interesting paper on the sonority
hierarchy in a fetschrift (however you spell it) for Morris Halle.
Selkirk says you can dispense with the major
features (consonantal, vocalic, syllabic) by using sonority, and I think
she is right.
I myself have done something much differnt with it:  explained
some assymmetries in J. Greenberg's universals concerning initial
and final clusters (presented at LSA Winter Meeting '84).  
	Sorry if I'm rattling on and on.  I was very excited to see that
someone had responded to my note, and that person knows some lingustics.