1

A Phonotactic Analysis of
English Linguistic Terms

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE COUNCIL OF THE COLLEGE OF ARTS

UNIVERSITY OF MUSTANSIRIYA IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER
OF ARTS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS.

By

Majda Sabri Faris

Supervised by

Prof. Bushra Mustafa Nori

2006 AD 1426 AH
 ‫‪2‬‬

‫وح ِمنْ أَ ْم ِر َربِّي َو َما أُوتِيتُم ِّمن‬ ‫وح قُ ِل ُّ‬

‫الر ُ‬ ‫سأَلُونَ َك َع ِن ُّ‬
‫الر ِ‬ ‫َويَ ْ‬

‫ا ْل ِع ْل ِم إِالَّ قَ ِليلا‪.‬‬

‫صدق هللا العظيم‬

‫(سورة األسراء اآلية ‪)85‬‬
 3

Dedication

TO
IRAQ

TO MY FAMILY

WITH LOVE
AND
GRATITUDE

List of Segmental Symbols
Consonants:
Plosives:
/p/ as in pin /pɪn/
/b/ as in bin /bɪn/
/t/ as in tin /tɪn/
/d/ as in din /dɪn/
/k/ as in kin /kɪn/
/g/ as in gum /gm/
Affricates:
/t/ as in chain /teɪn/
/d3/ as in Jane /d3eɪn/
Fricatives:
/f/ as in fine /fain/
/v/ as in vine /vain/
// as in think /ik/
/ð/ as in this /ðɪs/
/s/ as in seal /si:l/
/z/ as in zeal /zi:l/
// as in sheep /i:p/
/3/ as in measure /me3ə/
/h/ as in how /hau/
Nasals:
/m/ as in sum /sm/
/n/ as in sun /sn/
/ŋ/ as in sung /sŋ/
Approximants (Glide and Liquid):
/l/ as in light /lait/
/r/ as in right /rait/
/w/ as in wet /wet/
/j/ as in yet /jet/
4
Vowels:
Short Vowels:
/ɪ/ as in pit /pɪt/
/e/ as in pet /pet/
/æ/ as in pat /pæt/
// as in putt /pt/
/D/ as in pot /pDt/
/ʊ/ as in put /pʊt/
/ə/ as in about /əbaut/
Long Vowels:
/i:/ as in bean /bi:n/
/a:/as in barn /ba:n/
/ɔ:/ as in born /bo:n/
/u:/ as in boon /bu:n/
/3:/ as in burn /b3:n/
Diphthongs:
/eɪ/ as in bay /beɪ/
/aɪ/ as in buy /baɪ/
/oɪ/ as in boy /boɪ/
/əʊ/ as in no /nəʊ/
/aʊ/ as in now /naʊ/
/ɪə/ as in peer /pɪə/
/eə/ as in pair /peə/
/ʊə/ as in poor /pʊə/
(After Jones,2004:vi)
 5

Abstract
A phoneme of a particular language does not combine or co-occur
freely with just any other phoneme or phonemes. There are in fact constraints
of different types on the combinability of a phoneme which stands on various
relationships to other phonemes with which it occurs in a certain phonetic or
phonological contexts. As far as English is concerned, the lexicon has a set of
phonotactic constraints which function as a filter allowing entry only to
phonotactically well-formed words which must have a combination of
phonemes that are permissible with the systematic factors of a language.
The present study is an attempt to investigate the sequential
arrangements of consonants initially and finally, i.e., the combinations of a
consonant with another consonant(s) in (40) linguistic terms extracted from
(40) linguistic texts. This phenomenon, however, differs from one language
to another, a case which, in turn poses a crucial problem in pronouncing and
acquiring native-like pronunciation among EFL learners at university level in
Iraq, thus, it is worth studying.
This study postulates that the restrictions on phonemes occurrence in
initial positions are more than in final ones, two-initial consonant clusters are
used frequently in English and two-final consonant clusters are more frequent
than the other types.Moreover, it tries to verify that the dominant phonotactic
formulas that employed initially and finally in the data are:
Initial + post-initial (as in pronoun)
Pre-final + final (as in field)
In view of that, this study primarily aims at diagnosing some basic
phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic terms in various
linguistic contexts. A phonological analysis of initial and final consonant
clusters in RP. English is made so as to identify the types and patterns of
consonant clusters in the data.
 6

The plan of this study is theoretically and practically oriented. Chapter

one sheds light on the general theoretical framework of English phonotactics
by dealing with basic topics such as phoneme, syllable, etc, in general and
consonant clusters, in particular.
Chapter two, deals with terminology. It tackles the fundamental aspects
of terminology, i.e., definitions, dimensions, theories, etc. It also presents an
overview on linguistics, its characteristics and linguistic terminology.
Chapter three is practically-based. It is devoted to the phonotactic
analysis, more specifically to initial and final consonant clusters analysis of
the terms selected arbitrarily from various linguistic texts, i.e., (40) in number
divided into: phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic terms.
They are equal in number, that is (10) terms for each level. This study is
based on an eclectic model of consonant clusters analysis proposed by
Gimson (1989), Roach (2000), Kreidler (2003). Besides, famous English
professors participated in providing their points of view concerning the
analytical framework. Furthermore, the analysis is limited to syllable-based
initial and final consonant clusters and the phonemic transcription of
linguistic terms is based on Received Pronunciation.
The Results can be summed up as follow: the total number of the
consonant clusters in the data is (41). The number of initial- consonant
clusters is (16) which constitutes the percentage (39.024). The number of
final-consonant clusters is (25) which forms the percentage (60.976). By
analysing the findings of initial-consonant clusters separately it is found that
two-initial consonant cluster is the prevailing type in the data under analysis,
i.e., it takes number (15) out of (16) which composes the percentage
(93.75). In return, three- initial consonant cluster takes number (1) out of
(16) which represents the percentage (6.25). In addition to, the formula:
(initial+post-initial) is the dominating one. It takes number (14) out of (15)
whereas the phonotactic pattern (pre-initial+initial) has only one example. In
conducting the same statistical means with final-consonant clusters, the
 7

investigation reveals that two-final consonant cluster is the prevailing one,

the number is (24) which makes up the percentage (96). At the other
extreme, three-final consonant cluster takes number (1) which represents the
percentage (4). Concerning the formulas of two-final consonant clusters,
the number of terms that follow the formula (pre-final+final) is (19) which
constitutes the percentage (75). As for the formula (final+post final) the
number is (6) which makes up the percentage (25).
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Table of Contents
Title Page
List of Segmental Symbols XIV
List of Abbreviations XV
List of Figures XVI
List of Tables XVII
Introduction XVIII
I- The Problem XVIII
II- The Aims XIX
III- The Hypotheses XIX
IV- The Procedures XX
V- The Limits XX
VI- The Data XXI
VII- The Value XXI
CHAPTER ONE
English Phonotactics: An Overview
1.1 Preliminary Notes 1
1.2 Phonetics and Phonology 1
1.3 The Phoneme 3
1.3.1 Some Related Concepts 5
1.3.2 Phoneme Relations 6
1.3.2.1 Syntagmatic Relations 7
1.3.2.2 Paradigmatic Relations 7
1.4 The Syllable 7
1.4.1 Theories of the Syllable 8
1.4.1.1 Sonority Scale 9
1.4.1.1.1 Sonority Sequencing Principle 10
1.4.1.1.2 English Sonority Distance Principles 11
14.2 Syllable Structure 12
1.4.3 Syllable Division (Syllabification) 14
1.5 Phonotactics 15
1.5.1 Vowel Phonotactics 17
1.5.1.1 Diphthongs 18
1.5.1.2 Triphthongs 19
 9

1.5.2 Consonant Phonotactics 19

1.5.2.1 Consonant Clusters 20
1.5.2.1.1 Initial Consonant Clusters 22
1.5.2.1.1.1 Initial Two-Consonant Clusters 22
1.5.2.1.1.2 Initial Three-Consonant Clusters 25
1.5.2.1.2 Medial Consonant Clusters 26
1.5.2.1.3 Final Consonant Clusters 27
1.5.2.1.3.1 Final Two-Consonant Clusters 28
1.5.2.1.3.2 Final Three-Consonant Clusters 31
1.5.2.1.3.3 Final Four-Consonant Clusters 33
1.6 Some Consequences of Phonotactics 34
CHAPTER TWO
Terminology and Linguistics
2.1 Preliminary Notes 37
2.2 Terminology 38
2.2.1 Dimensions of Terminology 40
2.3 Terminology and Lexicology 41
2.4 Terminography and Lexicography 41
2.5 Terms 44
2.5.1 Term Characteristics 46
2.5.2 Concept vs. Term 48
2.5.3 Term vs. Word 50
2.5.4 Term Classification 51
2.5.5 Term Formation 51
2.6 Approaches of the Theory of Terminology 52
2.7 Theories of Terminology 55
2.7.1 The General Theory of Terminology 55
2.7.2 The Developed Theory of Terminology 59
2.8 Linguistics 61
2.9 Characteristics of Linguistics 64
2.10 Linguistic Terminology 66
CHAPTER THREE
The Data Analysis
3.1 Introductory Notes 71
3.2 The Phonotactic Analysis of the Data 73
3.2.1 Analysis of the Phonological Terms 73
3.2.2 Analysis of the Morphological Terms 83
 11

3.2.3 Analysis of the Syntactic Terms 93

3.2.4 Analysis of the Semantic Terms 103
3.3 Results 113
3.4 Conclusions 118
3.41 Theoretical Conclusions 118
3.4.2 Practical Conclusions 121
Suggestions for Further Research 123
Bibliography 124
Appendix
Abstract in Arabic
 11

Introduction
Phonotactics studies the way a language structures its syllables and
their distributional properties of phonemes. In this regard, Crystal (2003:352)
views phonotactics as “A term used in phonology to refer to the sequential
ARRANGEMENTS (or tactic behaviour) of phonological UNITS which occur in

a language-what counts as phonologically well- formed word”. In acquiring a

foreign language, like English, learners try to recognize the aspects of
arrangement of phonemes which form the structure of English.
This study tries to investigate the nature of consonant phonotactics in
English with particular reference to linguistic terminology, i.e.,
phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic terms as they are
selected randomly from various linguistic texts. The study is expected to
reveal the types of combinations of consonants in initial and final
positions in the data. It also attempts to shed light on the limitations of the
possible sequences of consonants.

I. The Problem
It is evident that every language has its own distribution of phonemes
within the framework of syllables, words or utterances. In Standard English
(henceforth SE) the distribution of consonants is either in the onset position
or in the coda position or both, moreover, the number of consonants varies
differently with respect to each position. Most EFL learners have a tendency
to break up any sequence of consonants by using an epenthetic vowel .For
instance, the term „stress‟ is often wrongly pronounced as /sitres/ instead of
/stres/.It is due to the fact that consonants clusters permitted in English are
larger in number compared to those in Arabic. In addition to that a
phonotactic analysis of English linguistic terms has not been touched upon in
Iraq ,thus, it is worth studying. This study tries to shed light on the following
 12

points which constitute problems in themselves: (1) consonant phonotactics

in some basic linguistc terms and (2) the limitations of sequencing of
phonemes, i.e., phonotactic constraints in linguistic terms.

II. The Aims

This study aims at:
1- Identifying terms, i.e., concentrating on some of the intrinsic linguistic
terms.
2- Identifying English consonant cluster patterns in the selected linguistic
terms.
3- Specifying the types of consonant sequences in the data.

III. The Hypotheses

This study is based on the following assumptions which will be verified,
i.e., confirmed, or refuted:
1-The great majority of the permissible combinations are of two-consonant
clusters in the data under analysis.
2-Most of the permissible consonant sequences occur finally.
3-The dominant formula of a cluster in initial position is represented by the
following pattern: (initial + post-initial) and the prevailing formula in final
positions is: (pre-final + final).

IV. The Procedures

The steps to be followed in the present study cover:

1- An account on phonotactics focusing on consonant clusters in English.

2- A general theoretical background on terminology and linguistics.

3- A syllable-based analysis of consonant clusters of the selected linguistic

terms is made after classifying them according to the levels of linguistics, i .e,
phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic.
 13

4- Relevant results, conclusions and suggestions for further research are

made.

V. The Limits

This study is limited to:

1- Identifying the basic linguistic terms according to the following levels:
phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic.
2- Purely phonetic and pragmatic terms are excluded.
3- Received Pronunciation (henceforth RP) is adopted in this study. The
phonemic transcription used in the analysis is taken from British dictionaries
by Hornby (2004) entitled “Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current
English” and Trask (1996) entitled “A Dictionary of Phonetics and
Phonology”.
4- Conducting a phonotactic (syllable-based consonant cluster) analysis of
(40) linguistic terms taken from various linguistic texts.Concentrating on
initial and final consonant combinations only, i.e., medial clustering at word
boundaries or across word boundaries is beyond the scope of this study.

VI. The Data

The linguistic data utilized in this study includes forty texts which are
selected from the following reference books (ten texts are used with respect
to each level):
1- Burton, N. (1998). Analysing Sentences.
2-Crystal, D. (2003). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics.
3- Katamba, F. (1993). Morphology.
4- Lass, R (1996) Phonology.
5- Lobner, S (2002). Understanding Semantics.
6- Palmer, F. (1988). Semantics.
7- Roach, P. (2000). English Phonetics and Phonology
8-Thakur, D. (2002). Morphology.
 14

VII. The Value

The investigation of English phonotactics concerning linguistic terms
that will be carried out in this study is hoped to be of value to EFL learners of
English at university level. The value of this study stems from the fact that
previous studies on consonant clusters rely basically on general dictionaries,
i.e., specialized words (terms) are not included in such dictionaris.
Accordingly this study completes the findings of others, by embarking on a
topic that has not been tackled before in Iraq. It is a virgin topic, i.e.,
phonotactic analysis of linguistic terms.
It is also of value in that the results of this study are worthy for
researchers and all those who are interested specifically in phonology and
generally in morphology, syntax and semantics. In fact it fills a gap in the
literature.

CHAPTER ONE
English Phonotactics
1.1 Preliminary Notes

Before embarking on the analysis of the phonological term

„phonotactics‟, it is first necessary to survey briefly the different viewpoints
concerning the concept of „phonotactics‟ as viewed and analyzed by a
number of phoneticians and linguists in the field of English language. This
chapter will try to present definitions and analyses of basic terms like
„phonetics‟, „phonology‟, „phoneme‟, „syllable‟, „syllable structure‟,
 15

„phonotactics‟, „phonotactic patterns‟, „consonant clusters‟ and types of

consonant clusters.

1.2 Phonetics and Phonology

To start with, “phonetics is the scientific study of speech”.

Conventionally it is divided into articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics
and auditory phonetics. Instrumental phonetics studies all the above
mentioned branches by means of instruments to measure, record or analyse
data. Phonetics is purely scientific. It is commonly considered to be a distinct
discipline from linguistics, the two together being labeled the linguistic
sciences (Trask, 1996:270).
Phonology, on the other hand, is that branch of linguistics which
deals with the relations among speech sounds in a particular language and
languages generally and contrasting with phonetics. Actually, the distinction
between phonetics and phonology was not firmly established until well in the
twentieth century, particularly as a result of the work done by „Prague
School‟, which popularized the term „phonology‟. In fact, most approaches to
phonology before 1960s were centred on the phonemes distribution, contrast
and representation (Ibid.).
Furthermore, Roach (2002:58) agrees with Trask and most
phoneticians, if not all, that phonetics is “the scientific study of speech”. He
(Ibid.) adds that the principal concerns of phonetics are: firstly, the discovery
of how speech sounds are produced (articulatory and kinaesthetic
observation ). Secondly, how they are used in spoken languages, this second
area of investigation according to Roach (Ibid.) is an area of overlapping with
phonology where the interest is only on sounds used in meaningful speech.
Thirdly, the need for agreed conventions for using phonetic symbols that
represent speech sounds. This function is well done by the „International
Phonetic Alphabet‟(henceforth IPA).
 16

On the other hand, the main activity of phonology is the

phonemic analysis which is used to arrive at the phonemic inventory of a
language, i.e., the phonemes. Moreover, he (Ibid.) urges to study
suprasegmental phonology , the study of stress, rhythm and intonation, by
stating that one can go beyond the phoneme and look into the detailed
characteristics of each unit in terms of distinctive features; phonotactics; and
syllable structure analyses.
Finch (2000:33-34) believes that both phonetics and phonology are
concerned with the study of speech, in general and with the dependence of
speech on sounds, in particular. He (Ibid.) states that it is important to realize
the fact that "a sound is both a physical and mental phenomenon", in order to
understand the distinction between the two disciplines. This division between
the physical and mental dimensions of speech sounds is rellected in the terms
„phonetics‟ and „phonology‟. However, this division is a matter of fierce
argumentation between phoneticians and phonologists since both sides are
not convinced that there is a clear demarcation line between them.
Phonetics is really a technically based subject concerned with measuring sounds,
recording frequencies and generally studying the physiology of speech. Phonology,
on the other hand, is essentially preoccupied with sounds as a system for
carrying meaning. Its fundamental concern is with identifying phonemes (Ibid.).

It is worth noting that there are segment constraints and sequential

constraints for both phonetics and phonology. There are restrictions of how
segments can be combined sequentially. This means that words or syllables
can begin only with certain segments or that certain segments cannot occur
before or after other segments (Hyman, 1982:9).
Finally, some scholars including Todd (1987:13) place phonetics
within the study of phonology, he subsumes under the study of phonology
two fields: the first is the study of the production, transmission and reception
of speech sounds, a discipline which is known as „phonetics‟ and the study of
 17

sounds and sounds patterns of a specific language , a discipline known as

„phonemics‟ .

1.3 The Phoneme

Many definitions of the term „phoneme‟ have been coined, but before
stating which one will be of concern to the present study, it is convenient to
present these different definitions and interpretations adopted by various
phoneticians and linguists on this term in order to have a comprehensive
theoretical background.

The phoneme is one of the fundamental notions in phonetics and

phonology. It is perhaps the most extensively discussed as a phonetic
phenomenon. There are two types of phoneme definitions: phonetic and
phonological ones. The former defines a phoneme on the basis of certain
phonetic features like sonority. Thus, the most sonorous sound occupies the
centre in a syllable and the least sonorous occupies the margins of a syllable
whereas the latter designates vowels and consonants as classes of sounds
which occupy various positions in syllables (O‟Connor, 1973:229 and
Hawkins, 1984:269). Moreover, phonological theories are divided into
phonemic and non-phonemic theories. The former deals with phonemes as
the basic unit in the phonological analysis whilst the latter does not consider
phonemes the basic elements of the phonological analysis (Lyons, 1999:84).
Broadly speaking, Crystal (2003:347) defines a phoneme as “the
minimal unit in the sound system of a language”. A phoneme is actually an
abstraction rather than a concrete description of a specific sound. In this
respect, Roach (2000:38) argues that “just as there is an abstract alphabet as
the basis of the writing system, so there is an abstract set of units as the basis
of speech. These units are called „phonemes‟, and the complete set of these
units is called the phonemic system”. In support to this view, Trask
(1996:264) emphasizes the abstractness of a phoneme by mentioning that “a
 18

phoneme is an abstract segment which is one of a set of such segments, in the

phonological system of a particular language or speech variety”.
Elgin (1979: 85 and Kreidler, 2003: 3) on the other hand, concentrate
on the relatedness of sound and meaning via phoneme. The former points out
that “the phoneme is the unit of sound in a particular language which is
capable of differentiating morpheme, the unit of meaning of that language”,
the latter states that a phoneme is a sound of a particular language that native
speakers consider to be just one segment, and which enables them to
recognize differences of meaning between words. Rules may apply to
phoneme in order to distinguish their phonetic manifestation- that is, their
pronunciation.
On a general basis, several views to the phonemic analysis have been
developed, for instance, the phonetic view treats the phoneme as „a physical
phonetic reality‟. Thus, Gleason (1955) defines the phoneme as “ a class of
sounds which (1) are phonetically similar and (2) show certain characteristc
patterns of distribution in the language under consideration”. The
phonological view examines the phoneme on the basis of its distribution.
The psychological view defines the phoneme as “a mental reality, as the
intention of the speaker or the impression of the hearer, or both”
(cited in Hyman,1982:60-72).
1.3.1 Some Related Concepts
Many phonetic phenomena come as a consequence of the mutual
influence of the adjacent sounds such as 'aspiration', 'devoicing', etc. In this
respect, any particular phoneme comprises a group of sounds that are
phonetically similar, but whose articulations vary according to their position
relative to other sounds which precede or follow them. For example, voiced
phonemes such as, / m, n, ŋ, w, j, r, l / lose some of their features under the
influence of being combined with other phonemes, so that they would
become devoiced, i.e., if they are preceded by one of the voiceless phonemes
/p/, /t/ or /k/ the whole cluster is usually voiceless as in pray and play, where
 19

the /r / and /l / in these phonetic environments are devoiced (Wells and

Colson, 1981:43; Roach,2000:38).
The environmentally conditioned variants of any particular phoneme
in complementary distributions are known as 'allophones‟. According to
Finch, (2000:61) allophones are “the different phonetic realizations of a
phoneme, simply they do not cause any change in meaning”. Examples that
can best illustrate these phonetic differences are the phonemes /p, t, k/ which
are aspirated if they are initials, i.e., they are released with a buff of air such

as, [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ ] as in pit [phɪt], tin [thɪn], and kiss [khɪs], respectively. But, if
the same phonemes are preceded by the phoneme /s/ they are no longer

aspirated as in, spin /spɪn/, steam /sti:m/and sky /skaɪ/ .

Since the aspirated and non-aspirated /p/, /t/ or /k/ when being
substituted do not lead to any change in meaning as far as English is
concerned then they are two allophones belonging to the same phoneme . In
this respect, sounds can be called 'allophones' of a particular phoneme if the
following conditions are available:
1-They are phonetically similar, i.e., they have the same major characteristics
like, voicing, place of articulation and manner of articulation, for instance, /t/

and [tʰ] are alveolar stop [t].

2-They do not occur in the same phonetic context ,i. e. they are in
„complementary distributions‟ which simply mean that these allophones are
regularly found in certain environments where they do not contrast with each
other, that is they occur in mutually exclusive positions without being
distinctive ( Kuiper and Allan,1996:51-3) .

1.3.2 Phoneme Relations

Evidently, the value of any phoneme in a language sound system is

determined by the relations it enters into with other phonemes in the same
phonetic context in which it occurs and the relation of substitutability where
 21

it enters into with other phonemes of the same phonological class. Such
relations are labeled „syntagmatic‟ and „paradigmatic‟ relations, respectively.

It is important to mention that syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations

are among the terms and concepts which are so widely used across all levels
of linguistic analyses, i.e., they might be seen in phonology, morphology,
semantics and syntax (Finch,2000:29). In this connection, the main concern
of this study is to explore a type of linear or horizontal (syntagmatic)
relations under the heading of „phonotactics‟. According to the Saussurean
tradition these relations can be shown in figure (1.1).

Syntagmatic

Paradigmatic

Fig, (1.1) Phonemes Relations

Taken from Finch (2000:29)
1.3.2.1 Syntagmatic Relations

„Syntagmatic‟ is a term which refers to the “sequential characteristics

of language”, i.e., certain order in arranging the individual items has to be

followed”. For instance, in forming the word pit, / pɪt /, the phonemes /p/, /ɪ/
and /t/ have to be arranged in this order, put it another way, violating this
order simply means making a completely different or non- sense word.
Accordingly, the relationships which a phoneme enters into with the
preceding or following ones are often referred to as „syntagmatic relations‟
 21

(Ibid.). Recently, a number of linguists including (Quirk,et.al., 1998:34 and

Kortmann,2005: 6) use the term „chain‟ to refer to such relations, i.e.,
relationships of „chain‟ or combination on the horizontal axis.

1.3.2.2 Paradigmatic Relations

The fact remains, however, that such relations are one half of a pair of
relationships, the other is known as „paradigmatic relations‟ which together
make up a constituent function within a language. Paradigmatic relations
“hold among a set of intersubstitutable items at particular phonetic contexts”.

Thus, /b/ , for instance, could be exchanged for /p/ before the sequence /ɪt/ to

form the word /bɪt/ (Finch, 2000:29). Again (Quirk, et.al., 1998:34 and
Kortmann, 2005: 6) use the term „choice‟ to refer to such relations, i.e.,
relationships of „choice‟ or interchangeability on the vertical axis.

1.4 The Syllable

Another important, but controversial issue is that of the „syllable‟ and

its structure. The „syllable‟ is a basic unit of speech which has been
extensively studied on both phonetic and phonological levels of analysis.
Phonetically, syllables are usually described as “consisting of a centre
which has little or no obstruction to airflow and which sounds comparatively
loud and before and after this centre (margins of the syllable), there will be
greater obstruction to airflow and/or less loud sound” (Roach, 2000:67).
Rogers (2000: 314) defines the syllable as “ a unit of phonological
organization, typically larger than a segment and smaller than a word”.Every
syllable has a nucleus, consisting of a vowel or syllabic consonant. Laver on
his side (1994:39) defines the phonological syllable as “a complex unit made
up of nucleus and marginal elements”. Nucleus elements are the vowels or
syllabic consonants, marginal elements are the consonants or non-syllabic

segments. In the syllable paint, /peɪnt/, the diphthong /eɪ/ is the nucleus
 22

element, while the initial consonants /p/ and the final cluster /nt/ are the
marginal elements.
Katamba (1989:153) states that “the syllable is at the heart of the
phonological representation. It is the unit in terms of which phonological
systems are organized”.
A number of scholars suggest that the term syllable should not be used
in either a phonetic or a phonological sense, but it should rather refer to a
linguistic unit composed of phonemes that are arranged according to certain
phonotactic criteria. This assumption is supported by MacCarthy (1978:107)
who defines a syllable as “that part of a word that can be separated from other
parts in accordance with the structural „rules‟ of the given language”.

1.4.1 Theories of the Syllable

Attempts have been made to provide physiological, acoustic or

auditory explanations and definitions of the syllables. According to „the
prominence theory‟ which is based on auditory judgements the number of
syllables in a word is determined by the number of peaks of prominence. In

the word entertaining, /entə'teɪnɪŋ/, for example, the peaks of prominence

are represented by the vowel phonemes /e, ə, eɪ, ɪ /, respectively. However,

this theory does not help much in the problem of syllable and division
(Gimson, 1989:52).
Another theory is the „the chest pulse theory‟ which treats the syllables
in the context of muscular activities and lung movements in the process of
speech. Experiments which have shown that the number of chest pulses
accompanied by increase of air pressure can determine the number of
syllables produced. Thus, allowing to associate with the number of chest
pulses (Ibid. 56).
This approach, however, cannot account for cases when two vowels

occur one after another , for example, in words like being /bi:ɪŋ/ playing
 23

/pleɪɪŋ/ the second chest pulse might be almost irrelevant and thus lead
erroneously to the conclusion that such English words consist of one syllable
only (Roach, 2004: 1 ).
Another approach is presented by „sonority theory‟ according to which
“the pulses of pulmonic air stream in speech correspond to peaks in
sonority”. The sonority of speech of a sound is seen as its relative loudness
compared to other sounds. Each syllable corresponds to a peak in the flow
rate of pulmonic air. Thus, the nucleus elements or syllabic segments can be
described as intrinsically more sonorant than marginal or non-syllabic
segments, however, this theory has many implications in phonology (Rogers,
2000:268):
1.4.1.1 Sonority Scale (hierarchy)

Speech sounds can be ranked in terms of their intrinsic sonority

according to sonority scale. Generally speaking, voiced segments are more
sonorous than voiceless ones and sonorants are more sonorous than
obstruents. Vowels are more sonorous than consonants and the low vowels
are more sonorous than the high ones. The sonority scale of English sounds
has many implications in consonant clusters (Carr, 1993:198); Rogers,
2000:269). The disyllabic word painting has been plotted to this scale as
shown in figure (1.2).

↑ vowels • •
more approximants
Sonorous nasals • •
↕ fricatives
less affricates
sonorous plosives • •

↓ p ei n t ɪ ŋ
 24

Fig. (1.2) The Disyllabic Word Painting

Taken from Roach (2004: 2)

1.4.1.1.1 Sonority Sequencing Principle

The possibility of certain consonants to appear in either positions of an

onset, namely (pre-initial, initial or post-initial) is greatly determined by the
so-called Sonority Sequencing Principle (henceforth SSP). 'The sonority of a
sound is its loudness relative to that of other sounds with the same length,
stress and pitch"(Ladefoged, 1992:291). Sounds can be arranged into a
hierarchy on the basis of their sonority. This scale may be detailed to
different extents; a possible arrangement of sounds from the least to the most
sonorous is the following: stops, fricatives, nasals, liquids, glides, high
vowels, and low vowels.

The SSP requires onsets to rise in sonority towards the nucleus and
codas to fall from the nucleus (Kentowics, 1994:254). Therefore, in onsets
the consonant occupying the first position must be less sonorous than the
other one in the second position.

1.4.1.1.2 English Sonority Distance Principle

There is another rule relating to sonority which applies to consonant

cluster analyses, it is the Sonority Distance Principle (henceforth SDP).
"A minimum sonority distance has to be determined. In the English language,
the two consonants in a word-initial cluster have to be separated by at least
one sonority rank" (Harris, 1994:56).

Regarding the SDP, a cluster like, for example, stop+stop,

stop+fricative, fricative+nasal or nasal+liquid are not permissible in English
 25

onsets. Although, there are certain words that contain such consonant clusters
initially, but all of them are words loaned from foreign languages. One
example is the German loan words schmaltz and schnapps which have

fricative-nasal clusters (/ʃm/ and /ʃn/) in their onsets. There are a lot of words
of foreign origin that contain impermissible initial consonant clusters in their
orthography , but in their pronunciation these clusters are reduced to a single
consonant, such examples are the words borrowed from Greek, which begin
with the pt-, ps- and mn- ,i.e. (stop-stop, stop-fricative and nasal,
respectively) , such as, pterodactyl, Ptolemaic, psalm, psychology, and
mnemonics. In the pronunciations of all these words the first sounds of the
initial consonant clusters, viz. /p/ and/m/ remain silent. This phenomenon can
be observed in a group of English (not loan) words, namely; in the words
beginning with /wr/ which is impermissible glide-liquid cluster. Because of
the difficulty in pronunciation, /w/ was dropped in pronunciation only in
Standard English (henceforth SE) (Ibid.).

1.4.2 Syllable Structure

As for phonological theories of syllable, they are mostly concerned

with internal structure of syllables, in this respect, phonologists have adduced
every possible configuration for the internal structure of syllables. For
instance, the main concern of CVC syllables, is whether the vowel is grouped
with the prior consonant (called the onset), with the posterior consonant
(called the coda), or with neither. The leftmost tree illustrates the theory of
the flat syllables, where the vowel groups with neither the onset nor the coda
(Clement and Keyser, 1983; Davis, 1985; Hockett, 1955). The second tree
illustrates the onset-rhyme theory, where the vowel groups with the coda to
form a constituent called the „rhyme‟ (Fudge, 1969; Selkirk, 1982;
Goldsmith, 1990). The last tree illustrates the body-coda organization, where
 26

the vowel is grouped with the onset to form a constituent called the 'body'
(McCarthy, 1979; Iverson and Wheeler, 1989) (cited in Kessler and Treiman,
1997: 1-2). Figure (1.3) shows those three basic theories by using the word
cap /kæp/ as illustration.

Syllable Syllable Syllable

Margin Nucleus Margin Onset Rhyme Body Coda

Nucleus Coda Onset Nucleus

k æ p

k æ p k æ p

Fig. (1.3) Flat, Onset-Rhyme and Body-Coda Theories

of Syllable Structure Illustrated with the Word cap.
Taken from Kessler and Treiman (1997:3)

More recently, some phonologists have claimed that the components of

the syllable are units of weight called 'moras' (Hyman, 1985 and Hayes,
1989) (Ibid.).
Syllables have internal structure that can be divided into parts. These
parts are onset and rhyme; with the rhyme, nucleus and coda are found. It is
important to point out that not all syllables have all these parts; the smallest
possible syllable contains a nucleus only. Simply, onset means the beginning
sound(s) of the syllable which precede the nucleus and coda means the
sound(s) at the end of the syllable which follow the nucleus. These are
always consonants in English (Roca and Johnson, 2000: 239).
Vowels and consonants do not act alone, but there are very few words
or words-like which consist of only one sound, for instance, (I, eye, oh, m).
 27

Accordingly, there are four patterns of syllables, they are: (ovo), (cvo), (ovc)
and (cvc). In this case, the syllable may be a vowel only, viz. the pattern

(ovo), as in (or) /ɔ:/, this kind of syllable is known as a 'minimum syllable'

.The syllable which is not closed by a consonant, viz. the pattern (cvo) as in
tea /ti:/ is called an „open‟ syllable. Most consonants in English may occur
initially in a word or in a syllable except /ŋ/ and /З/. At the other extreme, the
pattern (ovc) is known as a „closed‟ syllable since the syllable is closed by a
consonant as in (out) /aut/. However, in English every vowel can begin a
syllable or a word. In English, there are a lot of examples having the pattern
(cvc) such as (cat) /kæt/ .In general, English is a language having a syllabic
structure of the type (c)v(c). This generalization captures the reality that in
English both onsets and codas are optional elements unlike the nucleus which
is an obligatory element in the syllable (Stageberg, 1981:71; Gimson,
1989:343 and Crystal, 2004:246).
From a phonological viewpoint, consonants always occupy the margins
of the syllable structure, but it happens that a consonant occupies the nucleus
of the syllable (no vowel is found) as when time devoted for pronouncing the
vowel is transferred to the following consonant; and hence producing what it
is phonetically called „syllabic consonant‟ which is marked with a vertical
dash as in (,) underneath this consonant, as in the case of syllabic consonants

such as, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /l/ and /r/ in words like, rhythm /rɪðm/, garden /ga:dn/,

thicken /thɪkŋ/ (where thikən and thikn are also possible),cattle /kætl/ and

history /hɪstri/ (syllabic r is less common in RP), respectively (O'Connor,

1973: 66-73; Knowels, 1987: 102 ; Gimson, 1989: 54; Roach, 2000:78-82).
English syllable structures can be classified into two types: a phonetic
syllable structure and phonological syllable structure. On the one hand, the
phonetic syllable structure consists of three phonetic parts: the onset, the peak
and the coda. On the other hand, in the phonological syllable structure, the
vowel of a syllable, and any following semi-vowel, is regarded as the nucleus
 28

or centre of a syllable. The elements before the nucleus are called the 'onset';
and the elements after the nucleus are called the 'coda'. The nucleus and the
coda taken together are known as „the rhyme‟ (Roach, 2000:67 and
Crystal,2003:447).

1.4.3 Syllable Division (Syllabification)

„Syllable division‟ or „syllabification‟ are two terms for the same

concept which are used interchangeably. Crystal (2003:447) defines
syllabification as the term which refers to “the division of a word into
syllables”. Bulgram (1970:75) assumes that the syllable is a linguistic unit or
segment of the section which consists of one vowel nucleus and whose
phonological boundaries are determined according to certain phonological
rules of syllabification that follow the specific phonotactics of a given
language, in this respect. A number of scholars including (Bulgram, 1970: 75
and Carr, 1993:198-202) propose the following principles of syllabification:
1- a principle of maximal open syllabicity;
2- a principle of minimal coda and maximal onset and
3- a principle of irregular coda.
The afore-mentioned principles are further expanded by Fallow
(1980: 78) who suggests two other principles of syllabification, namely stress
and ambisyllabicity. The former principle means that a stressed syllable will
attract the maximum number of consonants in both initial and final positions;
while the latter principle shows the sharing of an intervocalic consonant by
neighbouring syllables, thus a word such as begin is syllabified as (be.gin) or
(beg.in). Furthermore, Crystal (2004:246) states that there are two instincts
in defining syllable boundaries: the phonetic instinct and the grammatical
instinct. For instance, there are two syllables in standing, but is the division
to be made between‟stan‟ and „ding‟ or „stand‟ and „ing‟? If the phonetic
instinct is followed, the former analysis will be preferred. If the grammatical
 29

instinct is followed and the division is done between the base form and the
inflection, the latter analysis will be preferred.
Finally, the phonotactics of a language can be used as a principled
basis for determining where the syllable boundaries occur in bi- and
polysyllabic words. Only the cluster that can occur at either the beginning or
the end of a syllable then can either begin or end a word and vice versa. Any
clusters that occur between two vowels will be assigned to a vowel so as to
produce permissible syllable-initial or final clusters. However, syllabification
is shown by using dots or small vertical line among syllables, but not all
dictionaries provide their users by syllable division. (Kuiper and Allan,
1996:96).

I.5 Phonotactics

It should be noted first that there is a general terminological

disagreement on what the term „phonotactics‟ refers to. Like other linguistic
terms, it has been viewed by different linguists. However, this section aims to
shed light on various approaches to, and definitions of the concept of
phonotactics in English so as to arrive at a valid and precise framing up of
such phenomenon.
Jones (2004:522), for instance, defines phonotactics as:

The st ud y of sequences of phonem es is cal l ed „ phonot acti cs ‟,

and it seems that the phonotactic possibilities of a language are
determined by syllabic structure. This means that any sequence of
sounds that a native speaker produces can be broken down into
syllables without any segments being left over.

According to Crystal (2003:352), phonotactics is a term used to refer to

the sequential arrangements (or „tactic behaviour‟) of phonological units
which occur in a language – what counts as a phonologically well-formed
word. By 'tactic behaviour' is meant “the systematic arrangements of units in
linear sequence at any linguistic level”.
 31

As for Kreidler (2003:77 and Roach: 2004: 3) phonotactics is the part

of phonology that studies and describes the definite limitations or constraints
on co-occurrence of phonemes, i.e. (consonants and vowels) within the
structure of syllables and words.
Trask (1996:277) regards the phonotactics of a particular language as
the set of constraints on the possible sequences of consonant and vowel
phonemes within a word, a morpheme or a syllable.

As a matter of fact, the English language allows a tremendous number

of consonant sequences, but not all sequences do occur (Rogers, 2000:89).
He (Ibid.) agrees with Yule (1996:58) on the existence of two types of gaps
in the English language. The first can be illustrated by considering some

sequences like bn- in /bnɪk/ which violates the structural combinations of

English where bn- is not a permitted consonant sequence for the onset,
however, this type of words is simply not English , it represents a systematic
gap in it. The second one can be illustrated by /lut/, it is very similar to the
words look and foot, it is clearly a possible word in English at some future
time it may come into use. Such kind of words represents an accidental gap in
the English language.
Katamba (1993:82), on the other hand, states that the lexicon has a set
of phonotactic constraints which function as a filter allowing entry only to
phonologically well-formed words. Before any putative word can enter the
lexicon, it must have a combination of sounds that is permissible in the
language.
phonologically speaking, phonotactics is defined as “the statements of
permitted string of phonemes including clusters, sequences, distributional
restrictions and admissible syllable patterns” (Lass, 1996:23).
1. 5 .1 Vowel Phonotactics
 31

Pure vowels can be defined in terms of both phonetics and phonology .

Phonetically speaking, vowels are “sounds articulated without a complete
closure in the mouth or with a degree of narrowing which would produce an
audible friction, the air goes freely over the centre of the tongue”.

Phonologically speaking, vowels are “those units which function at the

centres of syllables (nucleus elements), they are the vocalic parts of
syllables”. For phonotactic reasons, English vowels are commonly divided
into two categories, viz. „tens‟ and „lax‟. Generally speaking, the former is
characterized by being longer and a little higher than the latter. Such
categories of vowels classification are determined by the phonetic
environments in which they occur. Twenty vowel phonemes including
diphthongs are distinguished in RP, each functions as the nucleus of a
syllable (Rogers, 2000: 72).

Stageberg's point of view (1981:77) is that “vowels do not cluster.

when two or more of them occur successively, one of two things happens: (1)

one glides effortlessly into the other, as in try /trai/ and coy /kɔi/ , producing a
diphthong; or (2) they are separated by juncture, as in naïve /na+iv/. So, in
the distribution of English vowels, one has only one position to consider”.
Concerning the distribution of vowels in words, Stageberg (Ibid.:77-9)
states the following facts:
1-Every vowel without any exception can occupy the initial position of an
English word, but of course, certain vowels like /i/ and /e/ have a high

frequency of occurrence , others like /u/ and / ʊ / have a low frequency of

occurrence.
2-Every vowel without any exception can be preceded and followed by a
single consonant, as in bed /bed/ and top /tDp/.
 32

3-Not all vowels can end a word or a morpheme. In this respect, ( Stageberg
1981: 78 and Kreidler, 2003: ) use the terms „checked‟ and „free‟ to
distinguish two categories of vowels. Checked vowels are those that cannot

end a morpheme or a word. They are /ɪ/, /e/, /æ/, /a/ and / ʊ /, others that can
end a syllable are the free vowels such as long vowels and diphthongs.

1.5.1.1 Diphthongs

In its broadest sense, a sequence of two different short vowels within

one syllable is known as „diphthong‟. Diphthongs are characterized by a
perceptual gradual change or glide in a given direction. Diphthongs are well-
knit vowel sounds. They are treated as separate phonemic entities, because
like pure vowels they form the nucleus of the syllable (Catford,1988:215-16
and Coxhead,2000:4).

Diphthongs can be discussed in terms of two different parameters: (1)

in terms of the prominence of the first or the second vowel and (2) in terms of
the direction in which the tongue moves. According to the first parameter,
diphthongs are either falling or rising: a diphthong is termed falling if the first
element is louder than the second and rising if the second element is louder
than the first. All English vowels are falling, i.e. they have their greater
prominence at the beginning. Diphthongs also can be grouped into two
classes in accordance with whether the tongue moves in the direction of a

close or a central one, the first class is termed closing diphthong, like /eɪ/,

/aɪ/, /ɔɪ/, /aʊ/ and /əʊ/ while the second is termed centring diphthong , like

/ɪə / , eə /, and /ʊə/ (Crystal,2004:239and Meintyre, 2004:9).

I.5.1.2 Triphthongs
 33

Davis (1998: 46 and Roach,2000: 23) define a triphthong as a

combination of three consecutive vowels produced rapidly without
interruption, i.e., a glide from one vowel to another and then to a third such as

/aʊə/ in power, /eɪə/ in player, /aɪə/ in fire, /ɔɪə/ in royal and /əʊə/ in
lower.

1.5.2 Consonant Phonotactics

Gimson (1989:245-246; Roach, 2000:73 and Crystal,2003: 98) mention

the following facts on the distribution of consonant phonemes in English:
1- /ŋ/ does not occur initially, it always occupies the final position after lax

vowels, i.e., only after / ɪ, a, e, ,D / as in, ring /rɪŋ/.

2- /З/occurs finally in words of French origin after /i:, a:,u:,eɪ / and initially

only before /ɪ/ and /i:/ in some foreign words, such as, gigolo, gigue, zhivago.
3- In the initial position: a cluster of three elements is allowed as a maximum
number.
4- / r, h, j, w / do not occur finally.

5- /ð/ occurs only after / ɪ, i:, u:, eɪ, aɪ, əʊ, aʊ /.

6- /g/ occurs only after / ɪ, e, a,, D, i:, ə:, a:, ɔ:, u:, eɪ, əʊ/.
7- Only /d/ occurs after all vowels.
8-In final position a cluster of four elements is allowed as a maximum
number in English.
9- In general, clusters are not possible with / ð/, / t/, /d3/, or /z/.

1. 5.2.1 Consonant Clusters

The two terms 'phonotactics' and 'consonant cluster' are very often
overlapping, this is due to the fact that they have been assigned different
interpretations and used in various senses.
 34

According to Singh and Singh (1979:16) a consonant cluster is a

“string of two or more consonants, it is simply a way of combining the
consonant phonemes in a language”. Most English consonant clusters are of
two or three consonants which occur in three positions: in the pre-vocalic
position, the words tree , /tri:/ and street , /stri:t/ have a double and triple
consonant clusters , respectively. In the inter-vocalic position, the words

country /k۸ntrɪ/ and intransitive, /ɪntrænsətɪv/ have a triple consonant

clusters. In the post-vocalic position, the words fifth, /fɪf θ/ and length, /leŋθ/
have double consonant clusters.

Catford (1988:207), on his side, views consonant cluster as “a

sequence of consonants that occur initially or finally in syllables”. Thus, he
(Ibid.:217-18) mentions three types of consonantal sequence which are held
according to the articulatory relationships among the constituting segments:
1- Homorganic: a homorganic sequence is the one in which the articulatory
location of both members is identical, such as [tt, ss, ŋŋ ]. The sequence is
still homorganic even if it involves:
- a change in phonation (voicing), for instance, [td, zs,3 , bp ];
- or a change of stricture-type, for example, from stop to fricative or vice
versa as in [ts, zd ];
- or a change of oral air-path (central to lateral or vice versa), for instance, [tl,
ld, lz ];
- or a change from oral to nasal or vice versa, for example, [bm, nd, ŋk].
2- Contiguous: a contiguous sequence is the one in which adjacent parts of
the same articulator are used, with the consequence that the articulators used
in the two segments cannot be manbulated independently.
3- Heterorganic: a heterorganic sequence is the one in which the articulators
used in the two segments are quite different, thus all labial articulators are
heterorganic with respect to all lingual articulators ( except for the very rare
 35

apico- labial articulation to which this obviously does not apply), for
example, [pk, fx, gv ], consider table (1.1) below:

Table (1.1) English Consonants According to their Place of

Articulation (horizontally) and Manner of Articulation
(vertically).Taken from Jones (2004: x)

Bilabial Labio- Dental Alveolar Post- Palatal Velar Glottal

dental alveolar
Plosives p b t d k g
Affricates t d3
Fricatives f v  ð s z  3 h
Nasals m n ŋ
Lateral l
Approximants w r j

As for Fromkin and Rodman (2003:323), the limitations on the

sequencing of segments are called „phonotactic constraints‟. Phonotactic
constraints have as their basis the syllable, rather than the word. That is only
the clusters that can begin a syllable can begin a word, and only a cluster that
can end a syllable can end a word. English syllable structure displays the
following maximum pattern of general agreement: (CCC)V(CCCC). This
pattern captures the fact that a syllable consists of a vowel (v) which is
preceded by zero, one, two or three consonants as a maximum limit and
followed by zero, one, two, three or four consonants (O'Connor, 1973:229
and Hawkins,1984:269).

Broadly speaking, a cluster is defined as a sequence of linguistic

elements which may be sounds, such as a consonant cluster, vowel cluster or
parts of speech like noun cluster or verb clusters (Hartman and Stork,
1976:39). As for Hill (1958), a cluster is “a sequence of two or more
 36

phonemes of the same class without the intervention of a phoneme of another

class" (cited in Kuiper and Allan,1996:96). From the afore-mentioned
considerations, consonant cluster definitions are divided into three types: a
syllable-based definition, a word-based definition and an utterance-based
definition.

1.5.2.1.1 Initial Consonant Cluster

In RP, initial consonant cluster of three elements is allowed as a

maximum number. An initial consonant cluster forms the onset or the pre-
vocalic part of the first (or only) syllable of a word. English initial consonant
clusters are divided into two types: those consisting of two consonants and
those made up of three consonants (those contain /s/ initially).

1.5.2.1.1.1 Initial Two-Consonant Clusters (CCV-)

There are certain clusters of two-consonants since there are strong

constraints on what kind of consonants can occur together initially. Gimson
(1989:244) provides lists of possible combinations of English phonemes,
illustrated in table (1.2). His lists are almost complete, but as he himself says,
in case of rare, archaic and foreign words and proper names he had to select.

Table (1.2) Initial Two-Consonant Clusters

Taken from Gimson (1989: 244)

l r j w
p pl pr pj _
t _ tr tj pw
k kl kr kj kw
 37

b bl br bj _
d _ dr dj dw
g gl gr gj gw
m _ _ mj _
n _ _ nj _
l _ _ lj _
f fl fr fj _
v _ _ vj _
θ _ θr θj θw

ʃ _ ʃr _ _

h _ _ hj _

s sl _ sj sw sp st sk sm sn sf

Kreidler(2003:115), on the other hand, gives another arrangement of

two- initial clusters in terms of the types of consonant involved in a cluster:
1- Cr- (consonant+/r/) as in :
pray, brave, train, drain, craze, graze
frill, thrill, shrill
2- Cl- (consonant+/l/) as in :
play, blade, clay, glaze
flay, stay
3- Cw (consonant+/w/) as in :
twine, dwindle, quit, Gwen
thwart, swim
whistle
4- Cj- (consonant+/j/) as in :
pure , tube, cue
beauty , duty ,
 38

fuse , views ,
news, music
hue
5- sC- (/s/+consonant)
spy, sty, sky
sphere
smile, snow

He (Ibid.:120) provides the following general points concerning the

restrictions or constraints that are imposed on two-initial consonant clusters:
1- Both voiced and voiceless stops occur initially before /r/.
2- Both voiced and voiceless stops occur initially before /l/.

3- The sibilant stops (affricates) /tʃ/ and /dЗ/ do not occur initially in a
cluster.

4- Only voiceless fricatives, viz. /f, θ, ʃ, s / occur before /r/ and /l/.
5- In the sequence (cw-) only /t, d, k, g /stops and /θ, s /fricatives occur as a
consonant before /w/.

Generally speaking, not all stops and fricatives occur initially before /r,

l, w, j /. Only /p, b, t, d, k, g , f, θ, ʃ, s /do occur initially before them , also

with some restrictions with respect to each of /r, l, w, j /.When two glides
occur together initially , the first is /h/ and the second is /w/ as in , whistle,
wheel, white, which, but notice that not all speakers of English pronounce /h/
in these words; for them the words begin with /w/.
6- The only stops which can follow initial /s/ must be voiceless non-
sibilant , specially /p, t, k /.
7- The only fricative which is found in the second position in the initial
sequence (sC-) is /f/ occurring in few words of Greek origin (and always
spelled 'ph').
 39

8- The only nasal consonants that can follow initial /s/ are / m, n /.

To summarize, it is clear from the above mentioned considerations

that if an obstruent (stop or fricative ) and a sonorant ( nasal or liquid or
glide ) occur together initially , the obstruent precedes the sonorant ,i.e. the
sonorant is in the ' inside' position , next to the first vowel ( or only vowel ) of
the word. It is important to mention that a „liquid‟ is a kind of approximant in
Eglish (Coxhead, 2000:6). This can be shown as follows:

stop nasal
# obstruent + sonorant liquid + vowel…
fricative glide

(Ibid.)
1.5.2.1.1.2 Initial Three-Consonant Clusters (CCCV-)

In English there also exist word-initial clusters of three consonants in

which the first position is occupied by /s/ in all of them. In this sort of a
cluster one can see the uniqueness of /s/ to form a three-consonant cluster
initially with two other consonants , and also the unique behaviour of (/s/+
consonant) clusters, i.e. they violate the rules to which other two consonant
clusters conform, for instance, spume /spj/ , student ,/stj/, skew /skj/, splendid
/splendid/, screen /skri:n/, etc. Concerning three- initial consonant clusters
Gimson (1989,245) provides a list of such a type of clusters. Consider table
(1.3):
Table (1.3) Initial Three-Consonant Clusters
Taken from Gimson (1989:245)
s+ l r j w
p spl spr spj -
 41

t - str stj -
k skl skr skj skw

Accordingly, to this type of cluster there are nine real three-intial

consonant clusters and twelve potential three-initial consonant clusters.
However, the clusters /*spw/, /*stl/ and /*stw/ cannot be found in English,
though they are permitted consonant clusters, thus they are regarded as
representations of accidental gaps in the language, however, these sorts of
clusters are known as 'potential clusters', unlike 'illicit clusters' which are
ruled out by the general phonotactic restrictions on three- consonant clusters
such as /*pdz/, /*bfn/ or /*gtb/. Since the sequences /*pw/ and /*tl/ do not
appear in two-consonant initial clusters then they do not appear in this type,
this is due to the fact that the consonants composing them share identical
places of articulation which suggest that there is a relationship between the
two kinds of clusters. Moreover, clusters consisting of three consonants
presupposes the corresponding two- consonant clusters (Kreidler,2003:120;
Kuiper and Allan,1996:64; Hawkins, 11984:56).

1.5.2.1.2 Medial-Consonant Cluster

In the case of medial consonant clusters, a syllable-based analysis is not

appropriate since a monosyllabic word has no medial consonants at all.
Consequently, a polysyllabic word is an appropriate unit for the analysis of
consonant sequences across its syllable boundaries, i.e., medial consonant
clusters. Furthermore, an utterance is also considered appropriate for the
analysis of consonant sequences across word boundaries, especially for
longer consonant clusters. Medial sequences across syllable boundaries
accept four consecutive consonants, without any intervening vowel, as a
maximum in number, whereas clusters across word boundaries allow up to
seven consonant sequences (O'Connor, 1998: 76-7). Medial sequences across
syllable boundaries have the following three types:
 41

Medial two-consonant cluster has the following general pattern:

(-vccv-) as in the following examples:
/pt/ as in accepted
/ts/ as in itself
/ft/ as in lifting
The general pattern medial three-consonant sequence is: (-vcccv-) which
can be seen in the following examples:
/mpl/ as in complete
/str/ as in administration
/kst/ as in extend
The general pattern of medial four-consonant cluster is: (-vccccv-)
/nstr/ as in construct
/mptl as in promptly
/kspl/ as in explain (Kreidler, 2003:128)

1.5.2.1.3 Final- Consonant Cluster

Final consonant clusters are defined as “those clusters which occur

post-vocalically, i.e. after a vowel within the coda at the end of a syllable”.
English final clusters can be of two, three or four consonants, i.e., a cluster of
four consonants is also found and regarded as a maximum cluster. There are
three types of final-consonant clusters in English.

1.5.2.1.3.1 Final Two-Consonant Clusters (-VCC)

Final two-element clusters can be classified into two categories:

(1) Being a final consonant preceded by a pre-final where the group /m, n, ŋ,
l, s / constitutes the pre-final consonants, and (2)being a final consonant
followed by a post-final, the group /s, z, t, d, θ /constitutes the post-final
consonants (Roach, 2000:71).
O'Connor (1998:67) clarifies that the clusters of consonants at the end
are more varied as a result of the addition of endings like the third person
 42

singular and the plural ending (-s), the past tense morpheme (-ed) or that of
numerals (-th).
According to Kreidler (2003:123), there are six types of final two-
element clusters; the following exhibition expresses these types with relevant
examples:
1- -l C (/l/ + consonant)
l + p help
l + b bulb
l + t belt
l + d weld

l + tʃ belch
l + dЗ bulge
l + k milk
l + f shelf
l + v delve
l + θ filth
l + s pulse

l + ʃ Welsh

l + m film
l + n kiln
2- -N C (nasal + consonant)
m + p lamp
m + f nymph

n + t ant
n + d hand

n + tʃ lunch
n + dЗ sponge
 43

n + ŋ bank
n + θ month
n + z lens
3- FS (fricative + stop )
s + p lisp
s + t list ( /s/ + voieless stops)
s + k risk
4- SF ( stop + fricative )
p + s lapes
t + z spitz
k + s fox
d + z adze
5- SS ( stop + stop )
p + t apt
k + t act

6- - r C (/r/ + consonant) as in :
r+p harp /ha:p/, as far as RP is concerned, this type of two-initial
consonant cluster is not found, since /r/ is not pronounced post-vocalically.
However, this type can be shown clearly from the transcription of harp and it
is found in „General American‟ accent.

Kreidler (Ibid.) derives some general statements concerning this type of

clusters:
1- If a final consonant cluster consists of an obstruent ( S or F ) and a
sonorant ( L or N ) the sonorant precedes the obstruent, that is, the sonorant
is in the inside position, next to the (last) vowel .
2- If the sonorant consonant is a nasal, it is homorganic with the
following obstruent ; that is, it is produced with the same articulator as the
 44

obstruent. This means that before the labials /p/ and /f/ only /m/ occurs;
before dorsal /k/ only /ŋ/ occurs; and before other consonants the nasal is /n/.
3- If the sonorant is a nasal , the only voiced obstruents which follow are
/d/ and /g/, as in land and lung. Other voiced obstruents do not occur in this
position. Words like climb and thumb were once pronounced with a final /b/;
compare the words chamber and thimble originally related words, where the
/b/ is not final and still survives. Similarly, words like fang and long once
had a final /g/; compare finger and linger, where the /g/ survives in medial
position. In words like sing and long the final /g/ is still present in the speech
of some people, but it has disappeared in most dialects of English.
4- If a word ends with two sonorants , the two sonorants will not both be
nasal: there is no final cluster of the type – NN. The spelling of damn,
solemn, etc shows that a cluster of /m/ and /n/ once occurred in final
position, but no longer exists: compare damnation and solemnity, where the
cluster is not final.
5- Except for adze /ædz/ all final clusters of two obstruents are voiceless.
Note also that every such cluster contains /s/ or /t/ and perhaps both of them.
From the sequences described above, another scale of sonority can be
established by moving away from the vowel which is the most sonorous of
speech sounds, there is a general sequence like this (where #, at the right end,
marks the end of a word):

-Vowel + (glide)+(/r/) +(/l/) +(nasal) +(obstruent) #

/r/ may precede /l/; either of them can come before a nasal; and any of these
three occurs before an obstruent , but of course not all four occur together
since there is a constraint against more than three final consonants. Indeed,
there are further constraints on what the three final consonants may be (Ibid.).

1.5.2.1.3.2 Final Three- Consonant Clusters (-VCCC)

 45

Todd (1987:36) explains that “the (-vccc) pattern is quite frequent in

English although it is not found as widely in the language as the (-vcc)
pattern”. However, final three-element clusters are also of two types:
1- The first consists of pre-final plus final plus post-final
2- The second consists of final consonant plus post-final (1) plus post-
final(2). The second post-final elements include the same group that forms
the post-final of two consonants:/s, z, t, d, th/ (Roach, 2000:71).
Gimson (1989: 245) provides the following lists concerning final three-
element cluster patterns:
pt , pθ
tθ
kt
mp, mf
nt , nθ +/s /
ŋk
lp , lt , lk , lf , lθ
ft , fθ
sp , st , sk
ps
ts
ks
ds
mp + / t/
ns
ŋk

ls , lp , lk , l tʃ
sp , sk

nd + /z/
lb , ld , lm , ln , lv
 46

ndЗ , nz + /d/
ldЗ , lm , lv

ks
nt + / θ/
ŋk
lf

Moreover, Kreidler (2003:125) exhibits the following categories of

three-final consonant clusters:
i-Three obstruents : stop + fricative + stop (SFS)
ii-Nasal + two obstruents:
NSS: prompts, distinct
NSF: glimpse, jinx
NFS: against, amongst
iii- Liquid + stop + fricative (/l/SF)
melts, builds, fields

iv- Two liquids + stop (LLS) with only one example: world, notice that this
word is the only example of a three-consonant cluster in which all the three
consonants are voiced. In all other such clusters the last two consonants are
two obstruents.Notice also that this type occurs only in 'General American'.

1.5.2.1.3.3 Final Four-Consonant Clusters (-VCCCC)

 47

In general, most final clusters can be regarded as having a final

consonant preceded by a pre-final and followed by post-final (1) and post-
final (2). A small set of final four-element clusters can be analysed as having
a final consonant followed by three post-finals with no pre-final. The possible
four-element consonant clusters are:

1- -mpts as in : prompts
2- -lkts as in : mulcts
3- -lpts as in: sculpts
4- -lfθs as in: twelfths
5- -ksts as in: texts
6- -ksθs as in : sixths (Roach, 2000:69-73)

Ashby and Ashby (1990:168) outline some general observations

regarding the occurrence of final obstruents as the other members in final
consonant clusters. These points are summarised as follow:
1-Obestruents in the same cluster must agree in voicing , for example, lax
/laks/, rids /rids/ . However, there are a small number of exceptions which
include mixed-voicing obstruent clusters like width /wid/.
2-The manner of articulation of obstruents manifests four possibilities :
i- fricative + plosives , as in : graft, guest
ii- plosive + plosive , as in : packed, pact
iii-plosive + fricative , as in : cops, corpse
iv- fricative + fricative , as in : laughs, sixth
3- Obstruents in final clusters which are preceded by a nasal consonant show
either a homorganic or a heterorganic combination , as in : find /faind/,
climbed /klaimd/.

1.6 Some Consequences of Phonotactics

 48

Phonotactics can be used for different purposes. Besides studying

phonotactic constraints from theoretical point of view,other tasks based on
phonotactics are „morpheme variation‟ and „word segmentation‟.
Morphologically speaking, suffixes are known as “those morphemes which
are added to the end of a word, such as, the past tense, the plural, etc”. The
suffix which forms the past tense of regular verbs is written -(e)d, as in,

looked, played, and ended. The pronunciation of this suffix is /t/, /d/ or /ɪd/ ,
depending on the last phoneme of the verb to which the suffix is attached ,

for instance , kicked /kɪkt/ , begged /begd/ and petted /petɪd/ . Though these
three are different forms, they express the same meaning „past tense‟. The
unit of meaning which is labeled „past tense‟ is a „morpheme‟. Some
morphemes are always expressed in the same way (lexical morphemes), other
morphemes (grammatical morphemes) such as the past tense morpheme,

have two or more forms, called its allomorphs. /t/, /d/ and /ɪd/ are three
allomorphs of the morpheme „past tense‟. It is important to mention that the
use of one morpheme in certain phonological environment blocks the use of
the other two ( Katamba,1993:45-6 and Thakur, 2002:50-3).

A morpheme is either phonologically or morphologically conditioned:

“A phonologically conditioned morph is one whose shape has been
determined by its phonological environment”. For instance, the plural
morpheme -(e)s depends on the final sound of the noun to which it is

attached. Accordingly, /s/, /z/ and /ɪz/ are the three phonologically
conditioned allomorphs of the plural morpheme in English. The same is true
with the possessive („s) and third person singular present tense-(e)s
morphemes (Thakur, 2002:52).
However, the following morphophonemic rules explain what have been
so far stated (Ibid.:46-7):
 49

1-The regular plural suffix is pronounced /ɪz/ after /s/, /z/, /З/, /ʃ/, or /dЗ /.
2- It is pronounced /s/ after /p/, /t/, /k/, /θ/ or /f/.
3- It is pronounced /z/ after all other phonemes.
Similarly, the past tense morpheme -(e)d has also three phonologically
conditioned allomorphs pronounced according to the following
morphophonemics rules :

1- The regular past tense morpheme is pronounced /ɪd/ , if a verb ends in /t/
or /d/ .

2- It is pronounced /t/ after /p/, /k/, /θ/, /f/, /s/, / ʃ / or / tʃ / .

3- It is pronounced /d/ after all other voiced phonemes .
The morphophonemic rules regarding the past participle tense morpheme of
regular verb, (-e) d, are identical with the past tense morpheme (Ibid.).

Concerning phonologically conditioned morphemes, Kreidler

(2003:142) states that “if we look a bit further, we can observe that the choice
is partly determined by phonotactic constraints or one may say, by what is
natural in the English sound system”. He (Ibid.) mentions that the variant /d/
of the past tense suffix is the basic or fundamental form of this morpheme,
since it occurs in more environments than the other two variants. What is
more importantly, the other two are the result of necessary adjustments. To
elaborate more, English words do not end with two identical consonants like
/tt/ or /dd/ the kind of cluster known as „geminate cluster‟. Likewise, English
words do not end with two obstruents which differ only in voicing , the past

tense forms of skip, kick and kiss cannot be /*skɪpd/, /*kɪkd/ and /*kɪsd/
thus, an adjustment is made whereby /d/ becomes voiceless /t/ to match the
preceding phoneme (Ibid.). Another adjustment is the insertion of a vowel
between /t/ or /d/ and the suffix (-d), for example, the past tense of wait /weit/
 51

and need /ni:d/ cannot be /*weitd/ and /*ni:dd/,instead they become /ni:dɪd/

and /weitɪd/ by using the variant /ɪd/.

In this connection, Brinton (2000: 50 ) lists the most frequent two-
final consonant clusters in English words ending in (-ed): nasal+stop, as in
joined; fricative+stop, as in laughed; stop+stop, as in stopped; affricate+stop,
as in judged and liquid+stop, as in called. As for the most frequent three-final
consonant clusters in English words ending in (-ed), he (Ibid.) lists the
following: stop+fricative+stop, as in fixed; nasal+stop+stop, as in jumped;
liquid+stop+stop, as in helped; nasal+affricate+stop, as in changed;
liquid+nasal+stop, as in filmed; liquid+fricative+stop, as in solved;
liquid+affricate+stop, as in searched and fricative+stop+stop, as in risked.
As mentioned previously, some morphemes (lexical morphemes),
indeed most are always pronounced in the same way, for example, dog,
dimple, etc; other morphemes have two or more forms, occurring in different
environments. This is true of grammatical morphemes , such as past tense
and plural number, and it is also true of some lexical morphemes , for
example, enter /entər/ has an alternate form , or allomorph, /entr-/ in entrance
(Kreidler, 2003:144).
In this connection, Katamba (1993, 89) distinguishes two types of
affixes (both prefixes and suffixes), the first type is termed „neutral‟ whereas
the second one is termed „non-neutral‟. Neutral affixes have no phonological
influence on the base to which they are attached. Unlike non-neutral ones
which affect in some way or another the consonant or the vowel segments or
the location of stress in the base to which they are attached. In this
connection, the baseis regarded as a morphologically conditioned morpheme.
A morphologically conditioned morpheme is defined as “the one whose
phonological shape is determined by its place in relation to the adjoining
morpheme” (Thakur, 2002:53).
 51

CHAPTER TWO

Terminology and Linguistics

2.1 Preliminary Notes

This chapter sheds light on terminology and terms by providing different

viewpoints attached to the term „terminology‟ and describes points of
differences between terminology and lexicology, and terminography and
lexicography. It focuses on the development of theories and approaches of
terminology. Other related issues, for instance, concept analysis and term‟s
formation, extraction and classification are also dealt with, likewise,
distinctions between a number of dichotomies, such as term / concept and
term / word are also introduced. It also gives an overview on linguistics, its
definitions, theories, prominent figures, characteristics and linguistic
terminology.

Although terminology is an old field of knowledge, it is described as a

neglected aspect of reading, i.e., many people ignore its importance and the
role it fulfills in systematic linguistics and knowledge acquisition. Among the
many books on language, there are few dealing with terminology and
technical terms formation. These few mainly discuss the view and practice of
terminology. A common problem of terminology work is that the importance
and indeed the very nature of terminology are poorly understood. Thus, many
people simply have no idea at all of what it is, while others, searching for an
explanation of some sort (Sonneveld, 2005: 1).
 52

2.2 Terminology

Richards and Schmidt (2002:545-6) regard terminology as:

Firstly, “the special lexical items which occur in a particular discipline or
subject matter. For example, clause, conjunction and aspect, are part of the
terminology of grammar”. Secondly, “the development or selection of lexical
items for concepts in a language”. According to them (Ibid.), terminology is
often part of language planning: since when languages are being adopted or
developed for different purposes, new terms are often needed for scientific or
technical concepts.
Hartmann and Stork (1976:236) view terminology as:
The sum total of → terms used in a particular subject, e.g. chemistry or
phonetics or swimming, and contained in special glossaries and dictionaries.
The effectiveness and possibility of → Standardisation of technical
terminology has been the subject of serious discussion in lexicography.

According to Kageura (2002:15), terminology “is the vocabulary of a

subject field and regarded as a representation of the systematized knowledge
of a given domain”.
Broadly speaking, all terms belonging to specific domains collectively
form its terminology. The central concern of terminology, a component of
general documentation process, is concept analysis as Meyer and Skuce
(1990: 1) state that terminology is the discipline which is concerned with the
formation, description and naming of concepts in specialized field of
knowledge, it is a key component of the general documentation process, it is
normally preceded by knowledge acquisition and followed by document
preparation.
In contemporary usage, three senses of the term „terminology‟ are
distinguished (Sager, 1990:3 and Cluver, 1989: 146):
1- The set of practice and methods used for the collection, description and
presentation of terms.
 53

2- A theory, i.e., premises, arguments and conclusions necessary to explain

the relationship between concepts and terms which are fundamental coherent
terminological activity.
3- A vocabulary of a special subject field.
Felber (1981:70) underlies that Wuster (the founder of the General
Theory of Terminology), quite interestingly, defined terminology as “an
interdisciplinary field of linguistics, logic, ontology, information science and
individual subject fields”. Furthermore, Cabre (1998:19) asserts the fact that
terminology is an interdisciplinary field where the interaction is apparent
between terminology and other disciplines, like theoretical and applied
linguistics, cognitive sciences, communication sciences, translation,
documentation, computer sciences and knowledge engineering.

In fact, terminology is many faceted subject being, depending on the

direction from which it is approached and the affiliation, i.e., relationship of
the person discussing it, it may be regarded as:
1- a resource ,
2- a set of procedure to be used in creating this resource,
3- a factor in communication, and
4- an academic discipline ( Sonneveld, 2005:1).

Moreover, Sonneveld (Ibid.) states that "Terminology is a structured

set of concepts and their designations (graphical symbols, terms phraseology
units, etc.) in specific subject field. He points out three important points about
terminology:
Firstly, proper terminology is concerned with the relationship between
concepts, and between concepts and their designations, rather than with
designations alone or with the objects they represent.
Secondly, a designation does not necessarily have to be a word or
phrase, although it often is, thus, terminological resources may comprise
 54

symbols, drawings, formulae, codes, etc. as well as, or even instead of,
words.
Thirdly, terminology is in fact linked with specialist knowledge and
hence with special languages or languages for special purposes, in addition,
the word „structured‟ needs some explanations: it should be noted that, in
practice, terminological collections might well contain not only well
structured standardised terms and concepts, but also innovative, vague and
unstructured conceptual and linguistic information (Ibid.).
According to Sonneveld (1997:10) terminology is used for:
- abstracting,
- indexing,
- Knowledge engineering,
- translating, and
- teaching.
Other scholars including Pearson (1998: 31) emphasize the structured
nature of terminology by stating that terminology is a collection of terms
denoting concepts organized into classification hierarchy induced by general-
specific relations between concepts.

2.2.1 Dimensions of Terminology

According to Alberts (1998:4), terminology has at least three

dimensions:
- a cognitive one , which relates linguistic form to their conceptual content,
i.e. , the referent in the real world;
- a linguistic one, which examines the existing and potential forms of the
representations of terminologies and
- a communicative one which, looks at the use of terminology, and especially
at standardization process.

2.3 Terminology and Lexicology

 55

One particular area of confusion in the study of terminology and terms

is that of the difference between terminology and lexicology. Not only many
non-specialists, but also even many individuals working in such fields as
language learning, translation, language engineering, etc, frequently confuse
these two concepts and their field of activities.

Terminology is the study of special-language words or terms associated

with particular area of specialist knowledge while lexicology is the study of
words in general. Neither terminology nor lexicology is directly concerned
with any particular applications (Sonneveld, 2005:2).

2.4 Terminography and Lexicography

Another particular area of confusion is that of the differences between

terminography and lexicography.Terminography is concerned exclusively
with compiling collections of the vocabulary of special languages, i.e., terms.
A number of different names that are often used variably may label the
production of this work such as „terminology‟, „specialized vocabulary‟,
„glossary‟ and so on. Lexicography, on the other hand, is the process of
making dictionaries, most commonly of general-language words, but
occasionally of special language words, i.e., terms. Most general-purpose
dictionaries also contain a number of specialist terms, often embedded within
entries together with general-language words. Another equally important
difference between terminography and lexicography is that terminography is
concept-oriented and general while lexicography is more language-oriented.
Terminography is only concerned with a much specialized part of the
vocabulary of the language, namely; scientific and technical terms (Alberts,
1998:2).
 56

Sager (1990:3) regards terminography as a separate activity from

general lexicolography. The difference lies in the different nature of the data
traditionally collected, the different background of the people involved in this
work and to some extent in the different methods used .Cabre (1998:220)
mentions the fact that terminography (terminology in practice) and
lexicography are coming closer together. Furthermore, Alberts (1998:2)
subsumes terminography under the study of lexicography as a subdivision of
it that deals with the documentation of the terminology of different subject
fields, e.g. technical and scientific terms. However, the terminology of any
subject field (linguistics, physics, biology, etc.) or domain (sports, music,
etc.) can be documented in terminographycal dictionaries commonly called
„technical dictionaries‟.

At any case, the work and objectives of lexicography and

terminography are in many ways complementary, but there are a number of
differences which need to be noticed. Concerning methods of organization
and presentation of both lexicography and terminography, lexicographical
work (dictionary which is word-based) starts by identifying the different
senses of a particular word form. The overall presentation to the user is
generally alphabetical, reflecting the word-based working method.
Synonyms, which have different form but the same meaning, are therefore
usually spread throughout the dictionary, whereas polysemes (related but
different senses) and homonyms (same form, different meaning) are grouped
together (Sonneveld, 2005:2-3).

While a few notable attempts have been made to produce conceptually-

based, general-language dictionaries or „thesauri‟, the results of such attempts
are bound to vary considerably according to the culture and chronological
context of the author. By contrast, high quality specialized dictionaries are
always concept-based, reflecting the fact that the terms that they contain
 57

outline an area of specialist knowledge in which encyclopedic information

play a central role. Such areas of knowledge tend to be highly constrained
and therefore more agreeable to a conceptual organization than is the case
with the totality of knowledge covered by general language. The relations
between the concepts that the terms represent are the main organizing
principle of terminographical work, and are usually reflected in the chosen
manner of presentation to the user of terminology (Sonneveld, 2005:3). In
specialised dictionaries, synonyms therefore appear together as
representations of the same meaning, i.e., concept, e.g. „a feature of meaning‟
has several names as „sememe‟, „semantic component‟ and plereme.
Polysemes and homonyms are presented separately in different entries to
designate different concepts such as „accent‟ with the meaning of „stress‟,
„diacritic mark‟ and „non-standard speech‟ (Hartmann and Stork,1976: ix).

Work organized conceptually may also be presented alphabetically,

whereas the converse, i.e., the presentation of work originally organized
according to the form of the word in a thesaurus-type structure, is highly
problematic. (Sonneveld, 2005: 3).

As for the grammar of the „headwords‟ or rather „entry terms‟ in

specializd dictionaries are all open-class words, i.e., nouns (the vast
majority), some adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. The headwords in general-
language dictionaries cover all word classes, including grammatical words
such as modal auxiliaries, prepositions, articles, certain adverbs and so on. In
terminologies, such grammatical words may appear as a component of the
term or can be shown as part of the term‟s phraseology, i.e., the usual pattern
of the immediate linguistic environment, but never independent entry terms
(Ibid.).
2.5 Terms
 58

One cannot talk about terminology without dealing with terms which
are considered to be the tools that help linguists, specialists and
terminologists to meet their needs. Lyons (1977:148) states that:
A term (Latin „terminus‟), in its technical sense, is one of the terminal elements
of analysis, accordingly, there are two kinds of terms: names and predicates.
Names are terms which refer to „individuals‟. What is meant by „individual‟
depends upon one‟s view of the world. If we adopt what might be called the
metaphysics of everyday usage, we will say that particular persons, animals, and
discrete objects are individuals and that places … are also to be regarded as
individuals,... By predicate is meant a term which is used in combination with a
name in order to give some information about the individual that the term refers
to: i.e. in order to ascribe to him some property.

In literature dealing with terminology issues, a term is intuitively

referred to as „a lexical unit‟ consisting of one or more than word which
represent a concept inside a domain typically nominal that is:
- frequently occurring in texts restricted to a specific domain, and
- having special meaning in the given domain (Kageura, 2002:9).

Berry (1975: 144) gives an important status to terms within the

essential properties of systems in „systematic linguistics', however, this status
can be realized from the following points:
1- The term in system is mutually exclusive. The selection of one of the terms
precludes the selection of any of the other. For instance, the two terms in the
system of number are mutually exclusive. If something is singular, it cannot
be at the same time plural. The selection of the singular term from a system
prevents the selection of the plural term.
2- A system is finite. It is possible to fix a limit for a system and to say that it
consists of a certain countable number of terms, no more, no less.
3- The meaning of any term in a system depends on the other terms in the
system. If the meaning of one of the terms in a system is changed , the
 59

meaning of the other terms in the system will also be changed. For instance,
English has two terms in its number system, old English had three terms:
singular, dual and plural. The term 'plural' had a different meaning in the
three-term number system from the meaning, which it has in the two-term
number system. In the former, the plural means „more than two‟ whereas in
the latter the plural means „more than one‟ (Ibid.).
Hartmann and Stork (1976:236) regard a term as “a vocabulary item
which has special meaning in a particular subject field, for instance, sound or
voice in phonetics, or butterfly in swimming”.
Kageura and Umino (1996:265) base their definition of „term‟ on the
concepts of unithood and termhood. „Unithood‟ is defined as “the degree of
collocation stability, i.e., each term has a stable inner structure, while
„termhood‟ refers to the degree of correspondence to domain specific
concepts, i.e., each term may be linked to, at least, one domain specific
concept”.
A term, according to Alberts (1998: 1), is “a visual linguistic
representation of a mental concept and can be of the following: single term,
compound word, phrase, collocation, numeral, acronym, letter word,
abbreviation, etc”. She (Ibid.) adds that terms can be used as such if the user
already posses the configuration of knowledge which determines the role of
the term in a structure.
As for Richards and Schmidt (2002:544) a technical term is:
1- A word whose occurrence is limited to a particular field or domain and
which has a specialized meaning. For example, „phoneme‟, „morpheme‟,
„word‟ and „sememe‟ in linguistics.
2- A common word that has a specialized meaning in a particular field, such
as „significance‟ in statistics.
Language can be baffling. Words and phrases are forever evolving, and
after a generation or two, a word can come to be used quite differently than
the way parents and grandparents used that specific term. Many
 61

circumstances influence the evolution of language. Words (terms) and

descriptions must be found for new concepts and phenomena. English is the
native tongue of many different countries, and technical usage has evolved in
different ways in English. Many of the new terms and usages from several
different studies of linguistics in all its levels and branches thus become
available to all learners of English. (Holdsworth, 2000: 1).

2.5.1 Term Characteristics

Most writers like Farrell (1990) and Nation (2001), for instance, agree
that terms have certain characteristics that distinguish them from non-terms
or any other lexical items. These distinctive features can be seen from both
the qualitative and quantitative points of view. From qualitative viewpoints
(Nation, 2001:198-216; Farrell, 1990:29-30; Ayers, 1986:57) state that:

- Many terms in English are from Latin and Greek, for instance, phone,
phonology, syntax, etc. Besides, terms may appear as hybrids (sometimes
terms are formed composed of bases of different languages) such as
phonemes, verbal, vocal, etc;
- they do not have general usage;
- their meaning is closely related to a particular specialized field, for instance,
voice and sound as terms in phonetics and phonology (Ibid.);
- due to polysemy, the same term may have different senses in different
disciplines or some terms have been used to designate different concepts, for
instance, „accent‟ with the meaning of „stress‟, „diacritic mark‟, „non-
standard speech‟, while some concepts are known under different names or
terms, e.g., „a feature of meaning‟ as „sememe‟, „semantic component‟,
„plereme‟ (Hartmann and Stork,1976:viii).
 61

From quantitative viewpoints, terms have the following distinctive

features (Farrell, 1990: 29-30; Kageura and Umino, 1996: 280 ;
Nation,2001:198-216) state that:
- terms occur frequently in a specific subject;
- they occur too frequently in a specified discipline than in general usage;
- they may occur more frequently in one text related to a particular subject
area;
- they may occur more frequently within one topic of one text.

Furthermore, Nation (1990, 14) states that terms are related closely to a
specific topic and are important for any learning process in that specific topic
or subject area. They may occur several times, but they are unlikely to occur
in text outside that subject area.

Ambiguity is an inherent feature of a natural language. The problem of

„term variation‟ originates from the ability of natural language to express a
single concept in a number of ways. If there were some features which would
differentiate between terms and non-terms, they would be of great help in
terminology extraction. As for term recognition approaches, in general they
have been divided into three classes: linguistic, statistical and hybrid. The
linguistic approaches explore orthographic, morphological, lexical and
syntactic properties of terms, while the statistical approaches exploit the fact
that terms are likely to occur frequently in a domain-specific text. Best results
are achieved when the two approaches are used together in a hybrid approach
(Arppe, 1995:5).

2.5.2 Term vs. Concept

The more formal definition of 'term' rely on formalizing of the notion

of domain – specific meaning. Frantzi and Anoniadou (1997: 32) formally
 62

introduce a term as an ordered pair (C, T) where (C) stands for a concept and
(T) refers to a term form, i.e., a lexical unit designating a concept. In this
respect, the vocabulary (called terminology) of a subject is the group of
words (called terms) that are typically used when discussing or dealing with
the specific subject, however, terms are the linguistic representation of
concepts which are:
- based on concepts,
- the result of conceptual analysis,
- based on relationship between concepts ( Albert, 1998:3). And concepts
might be identified as:
- abstract entities;
- ideas; and
- universals (Peterson, 1973:119).
On the contrary, Hymes and Fought (1981:220) consider the shifting
relationship between concepts and terms “important, yet difficult, to map”.
Accordingly, the relationship is not one to one. A given term maps on to
more than one, or part of more than one, concept. At the same time, a given
concept finds expression, directly or partly, in more than one term. On the
other hand, Akhmanova (1981:89) alleges that terminology is of great
importance for the development of concepts because it is the basis of both
understanding the relation between concepts and reality and that between
different concepts. Accordingly, terminology requires definitions as a means
of refining and improving concepts. For instance, when a definition is given
for a term, it is a specification of its relation to other elements in the linguistic
reality, such as the phoneme, the morpheme, the sentence, etc.
Kageura (2002:9) also distinguishes between „term‟ and „concept‟ by
stating that a term is a lexical unit consisting of one or more than one word
which represents a concept inside a domain. He (1997: 127) inverts the
definition of a term by defining a concept as “a unit of thought represented by
a term”. This definition of a concept and those of a term stated previously
 63

entail that the relation between them is circular and reciprocal. The central
concern of terminology is „concept analysis‟, an activity which is recognized
as fundamental in any terminological work., Concept analysis involves:
1- The description of concepts through an enumeration of their characteristics
or properties.
2- The description of the relations that hold within structural systems of
concepts (Meyer and Skuce, 1990:56).
Generally speaking, a structural system of concepts reflects the
conceptual relationship between the constituent concepts of the conceptual
system and where each concept is determined by its position in the system
.For the purpose of constructing a conceptual system of the domain,
terminologists are interested only in those characteristics of a concept which
are sufficient and necessary, i.e. , essential. Other constituent characteristics
may be given special status, according to the differentiating role they are
assigned in the conceptual system of a domain (Heid, 2005:125).
It is generally agreed and particularly stressed by the Vienna School
of Terminology that concept analysis is the central concern of terminology,
essential to delimiting and partitioning nomenclatures, constructing
definitions, distinguishing quasi-synonyms, dealing with neology, carrying
out multilingual terminological analysis and communicating with subject
field experts (Wuster, 1985:53).
Despite of its importance, concept analysis is still done in an ad hoc
(unplanned) fashion, i.e., no developed methodology exists. Only rarely does
one find graphical or structured textual presentations of concepts systems in
terminological publications. (Meyer and Skuce,1990:56).

2.5.3 Term vs. Word

The topic „term‟ is still much debated (Sager, 1990:9). Much effort is
devoted to establishing how a term is distinguished from a word or a lexical
unit. Other scholarly designations such as non-term, non-specialized unit
 64

have been proposed to refer to linguistic units that could be defined within
the realm of „general language‟.
Kageura (2002: 11) adds that the status of a term within a language
emphasis is put on the distinction between „terms‟ and „words‟ and on the
localization of term in the realm of „PAROLE‟(the realization of language as
apposed to „LANGUE‟ the system of a language).
The search for a linguistic foundation to the distinction between term
and word, by whatever methods, no longer appears to be a fruitful approach.
From a linguistic point of view, at least, terms behave like words. A number
of recent studies support this view. Some have shown that terms can be
analyzed by using a variety of frameworks, some of which are formal
designed to account for the lexicon in general. Meyer and Macintosh
(2000:15), for instance, have clearly demonstrated that the dividing line
between terms and words is blurred, i.e., unclear or vague, and that lexical
units travel from one area of usage to another. Even though certain tendencies
can be observed using frequency or statistical measures.
In general, the meaning of terms evolves together with the expansion
of the underlying domain. Terms carry „heavier‟ information load comparing
with other words or phrases used in sublanguage, and as such, they can be
used to:
- provide support for natural language understanding,
- correctly index domain-specific documents,
- identify text phrases to be used for automatic summarizations of domain-
specific documents,
- efficiently skim, i.e. , float through documents obtained information
retrieval,
- identify slot fillers for the information extraction tasks, etc.

2.5.4 Term classification

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Term classification is an essential point that determines the meaning

of terms of different domains. The traditional approach to terminology
classification is the classification on the subject or domain basis that has been
the focus of most classification research. For example, in linguistics, terms
are classified in terms of the levels or branches of linguistics that they belong
to; chemistry classifies substances in correspondence to the number of atoms
within the molecule; physics gives the class of elementary particles and
biology considers the classification of plants (Boyko, 2002:1-2).
Another classification of terminology is the functional classification. It
is an interesting approach to the word processing and classification which is
based on logical expression, i.e. take into considerations many dimensions of
relations between important concepts underlie terms, relations which are
embodied in the linguistic phenomena such as morphological, syntactic and
semantic variations. For instance, between the terms: „generative‟,
„transformational‟, „generative-transformational‟, and „transformational-
generative‟. However, all four terms tell something about „generative‟. The
former being the base term from which other three syntactic variants are
derived through „expansion operations‟ and „substitution operations‟. (Chung,
2003:226).

2.5.5 Term Formation

Terminology is influenced by the subject fields and areas of activity it

covers. The formation of terminology can be regarded as an interdisciplinary
activity which is influenced by discoveries, views and developments that
occur simultaneously in every field of knowledge, and different
compartmentalisations of knowledge can lead to shift in the perception of
terminology and to changes of terms ( Sager,1990:4).
Kageura (2002:34) deals with term formation by focusing on the system
of terminology, i.e., on term formation and terminological growth within a
given domain. Basically it is assumed that there are systematic factors within
 66

a given terminology that “determine the formation of new terms and the
growth of terminology”. The methodology adopted by Kageura (Ibid.:39-40)
is “structural” in two ways:
- in a mathematical or algebric sense of the word, as mental patterns
(combinations of concepts) which are mapped to linguistic patterns (terms),
- in the sense of structural semantics ( Lyons, 1977) as a componential
method of analysis which is adopted with restriction.
Kageura (Ibid.) assumes that term formation is “a specification of
concept within a conceptual class”, i.e., a specification of nucleus (head) by a
determiner (modifier) where the role the determinant adopts with regard to
the nucleus defines the intra-term relation (Ibid.: 59).

2.6 Approaches of the Theory of Terminology

According to L‟Homme, et al., (2003:153-4) a family of alternative

approaches has been proposed in order to find a solution to part of the
questions raised by different scholars. The following approaches are the most
prominent and that have the greatest relevance to linguistics and language:
1- Socioterminology
2- Textual terminology
3- Communicative approach of terminology
4- Sociocognitive approach of terminology

1- Socioterminology: the major contribution to the study of terminology has

come from „sociology‟, this approach has advocated the necessity to take into
account the social dimension of terms as they are subject to variation
according to the social context in which they are used. Following Wlliam
Labov (1976) who asserted the necessity of studying language within the
social context, Gaudin (2003:15) views socioterminology as a way of
“getting terminology back to its feet”. Furthermore, Myking (2001:60)
 67

discusses the contribution of socioterminology to Wuster‟s original concepts

and distinguishes three types of critical positions:

a- Moderate and „loyal‟ whose followers try to move closer or even integrate
terminology with linguistics without abandoning the established theoretical
and methodological foundations, especially the onomasiological connection
with conceptology. This position has a very wide and liberal understanding of
linguistics, open to semantic description and hence distant from structuralism
and generativism, while at the same time claiming to reduce the polarity
between terminology and linguistics of the earlier phases of traditional
terminology.
b-Radical and „subversive‟: socioterminology, socio-cognitive terminology
whose followers completely reject traditional terminology. One result of their
position is sharpening the separation between traditional terminology and
linguistics.
c- Radical and „loyal‟ whose followers stress the need to study Wuster in
order to complement and adapt him to the achievements in cognitive and
functional linguistics (Ibid.).

However, Myking‟s explanation is not substantiated and probably

results from the fact that traditionally the different positions in terminology
tended to be presented as dichotomies, which has simplified the issue too
much:
a-The orientation of terminology: language planning vs. special
communication.
b-The type of terminography: topic-specific/ punctual vs. systematic.
c-The methodological orientation: semasiological vs. onomasiological.
(Cabre, 2003:175).
 68

2- Textual terminology: this approach bases its proposal on corpus

linguistics. Its advocates claim that several applications require a better
understanding of the functioning of terms in texts.
3- Communicative theory of terminology: (Cabre, 2000) stresses the
communicative dimension of terms in addition to their cognitive and
linguistic aspects.
4- Sociocognitive terminology: Temmerman, (2000: 35) questions the
validity of the General Theory of Terminology (henceforth GTT), she finds
that the traditional approach impedes the pragmatic and realistic description
of the large number of categories and terms. Inspired by the cognitive
sciences, she develops an alternative approach. The main principles of this
new approach imply: a combined semasiological and onomasiological
perspective; synonymy and polysemy are functional in special language and a
diachronic approach is unavoidable. She insists on the need for a definition of
the concept to be based on a model theory, and on the inclusion of a
diachronic and social perspective in the description of terms.
The situation then will be as Budin (2001:20) expects that:

We can expect that a single, but a collective, yet very multifaceted and
multidimensional theory of terminology is currently emerging, on the basis
of pioneering achievements of the first generation of terminology
researchers, and now with a whole new generation of young researchers
bringing many aspects into the discussion.

Freixa (2003:319) asserts that such a theory should have a stronger

explanatory power for semantic and cognitive phenomena and it should
account for pragmatic, social and cognitive aspects in order to provide
support for understanding regular as well as irregular phenomena and other
questions raised by social and technological needs.
2. 7 Theories of Terminology
 69

To start with, the questions, which are of central interest to the notion of
„theory‟ are: What a theory is and what it means to build a theory of
terminology. Accordingly Cabre (2003:179) states that a theory is:
A system of propositions deduced from a small number of principles
whose objective is to represent in as simple, complete and precise form as
possible a set of experimental laws. The condition of simplicity,
completeness and precision open the door to the logic-formal analysis, the
ultimate goal of the logical positivism prevailing in science during the 20th
century. In this perspective, a theory is understood as a set of hypotheses
which once established, it must be possible to conform or refute.
The notion of the „theory of terminology‟ itself is still a matter of some
debate. Some scholars like L'Home, Heid and Sager, still question the notion
of a theory of terminology itself, viewing it first and foremost as: a set of
practice or situating it within the realm of lexicography. Even so, it is widely
agreed that a sound theoretical foundation is necessary for providing a
framework for the practice of terminology. In addition, considering the
amount of recent literature on the theory of terminology, it is undoubtedly an
important issue for terminologists and a relevant subject for discussion
(L„Home et. al., 2003:152).

2.7.1 The General Theory of Terminology (GTT)

Since it was recognized as a discipline towards the middle of the 20 th

century, terminology has evolved considerably. One cannot talk about a
theory of terminology without referring to Eugen Wuster (1898-1977) who
developed a theory of terminology on the basis of his terminographic
experience in compiling “The Machine Tool”: an interlingual dictionary of
basic concepts (Wuster, 1969), as a systematically arranged French and
English dictionary of standard terms intended as a model for future technical
dictionaries.It is fair to say that all Wuster‟s life was devoted to terminology,
he is considered to be the father of terminology (Resche, 2000:629).
 71

Wuster‟s posthumous book lately entitled “An Introduction to the

General Theory of Terminology (GTT)” carried out by H. Felber, on the
basis of Wuster‟s lecture notes (1972-74) and published in 1979 establishes a
number of objectives concerning the use of terms and terminology:
1-To eliminate ambiguity from technical languages by means of
standardisation of terminology in order to make them efficient tools of
communication.
2-To establish terminology as a discipline for all practical purposes and to
give it the status of a science.
3-To convince all users of technical languages of the benefits of standardised
terminology (Cbre,2003: 165).

In order to achieve these objectives Wuster sets himself three major

tasks, namely:
1-The development of standardisation international principles for the
description and recording terms.
2-The formulation of general principles of terminology which he initially saw
as a branch of applied linguistics but later as an autonomous, i.e.,
independent field of study.
3-The creation of an international centre for the collection, dissemination and
organization of information about terminology (Ibid.).
For a linguistic conception the objects of knowledge are the
terminological units conceived as invisible combinations of form and content.
Accordingly, the content is associated to the form and therefore the units not
only designate but they also mean with all the cognitive consequences of
their meaning. These units, defined as combination of linguistics, namely,
structural, categorical, semantic and syntactic conditions appear in
specialized discourse (L'Homme et. al., 2003:160).
In this connection, Cabre and Felui (2001:33) reject the idea of
intrinsic adequacy of the word to its referent by proposing the cognitive
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approach to be used as alternative. They consider the inconvenient of the

restrictive structural approach as the reason of why Wuster regards
terminology as an autonomous field of study by stating that:

But the structural approach to the theory of linguistics, prevailing in Wuster‟s time
was too restrictive and oriented towards formal aspects of language to be able to
account for the specificity of the semantic aspects of specialized signs. This
explains why Wuster at the end saw his terminology as an autonomous
interdisciplinary field of study.

As in any theory, certain problems may arise, some formal, some

empirical. The GTT is no exception, from the problems that the GTT cannot
account for and that have been discussed in recent literature are:
1-Often the descriptive apparatus of the GTT, i.e., defining concepts and
conceptual structures according to the logical objectivist tradition and its
practical objectives, i.e., designing methods for standardizing the use of
terms, are confused.
2-The definition of a „subject field‟ is arbitrary and relative to objectives
defined within terminological project.
3-The concepts to which terms refer are not well-defined, clear-cut entities.
Moreover, concepts have been shown not to be language independent. Often,
when describing terms pertaining to different languages, terminologists must
review the way that have previously delimited concepts.
4- Models proposed by the GTT are well suited for terms that denote entities ,
i.e., concrete objects, animates, locations, etc. ,but not for other types of units,
i.e., terms that designate activities, properties or relations.
5-Terminological descriptions are rarely carried out from an onomasiological
viewpoint. In fact, practitioners usually adopt semasiological approach, since
they gather data from specialized corpora, and then proceed to analyse the
meaning of the extracted terms.
 72

6-Terms are not „context-dependent‟ units per se. On the contrary, many
terms are heavily „context-dependent‟ units and have to be described
according to their function in a particular text.
7-Numerous terms are polysemic and some are ambiguous. Terms are also
subject to variation (synonymy, syntactic transformation, reduction, ellipsis,
etc.) (L‟Homme, et. al., 2003:15

However, the critique of traditional theory of terminology comes from

the following sides:
Firstly, it is criticized from the cognitive psychology and philosophy
which have stressed the difficulty of drawing a demarcation line between
general and specialized knowledge.

Secondly, it is also criticized from the language sciences, especially

linguistics and sociolinguistics which have questioned the rigid division of
general and specialized language and thoroughly examined the social basis of
special languages and they have formulated generalized hypotheses which
may lead to models in which the general theory and the specialized one can
be integrated. In this type of language science, semantics and pragmatics play
an important role. In addition to the formal aspect of language, linguistic
models suitable for terminology must account for the cognitive functional
aspects. Text linguistics and corpus linguistics provide a grammatical
framework that extends beyond the sentence limits of structural linguistics
and standard generative models (Cabre, 2003:171-2).

2.7.2 The Developed Theory of Terminology

The (GTT) has been a subject of debate in various circles of

terminology and at the same time new approaches have been receiving
interest in order to discuss problems and fundamental issues related to
 73

terminology so as to establish fundamental bases in this field of study.

However, this section deals with the study of the new trends in the theory of
terminology and attempts to refer to the general principles that underlie the
formulation of a developed theory in terminology ( L'Homme, et. al.,
2003:153 ).
The GTT has developed significantly as a result of later contributions.
These contributions modulate and complement Wuster's ideas as can be seen
from the following points:
1-The objective of international standardisation is extended by suggestions of
terminology development as part of language planning.
2-Controlled synonymy is admitted. Wuster‟s posthumous work already
concedes this point.
3-A certain degree of synonymy is accepted though its avoidance is
recommended in terminology intended to be standardised.
4-Phraseology is added to the study of terminological units.
5-The meaning of the spoken forms is recognised in contexts of language
planning.
6-The model is made dynamic by introducing the description of the process
of formation of new terms.
7-The representation of non-hierarchically-ordered conceptual structures is
introduced (Cabre, 2003: 167-8).
On the other hand, what is not modified are:
1-The priority of the concept over the designation, and consequently its
autonomy.
2-The precision of the concept (monosemy), even though dimensions such as
parameters of classification are admitted.
3-The semiotic conception of designations (Ibid.).

Terminology has not had regular development, it has not benefited

from the natural development of most other disciplines. In this respect, Cabre
 74

(Ibid.) states that sciences progress by confrontation and interaction, by

contrasting hypotheses with empirical object, by suggesting models and
alternative theories, and finally by evaluating the plausibility of these
theories. In this sense, terminology has not had a regular development; this is
due to several reasons:
The first reason is that it is a young discipline. Establishing terminology
as a discipline is a merit of Wuster and few other thinkers of his time.
The second and more important reason is that until now there has not
been a serious discussion of terminology basic ideas.

The third reason which may explain the anomalous evolution of

terminology is the fact that “two decades ago the discussion of theory
became reduced to simple assumptions without accepting that a theory is
valid only to the extent to which permits the description of its object and
consequently the description of the data by which this object manifests itself
”.

The fourth reason, which may explain the continued homogeneity of

the established principles, is the lack of interest in terminology by specialists
of some branches of sciences, for example, linguistics, psychology,
philosophy and history of science and even communication and discourse
studies.
A fifth equally important reason arising from the previous one, has been
the absence of strong theorists in the field.

2.8 Linguistics: An Overview

Linguists, like (Kortmann, 2005:2; Crystal, 2003:278; Finch, 2000:1;

Lyons, 1999:37; Aitchison, 1987:7), among other agree that linguistics is the
systematic or scientific study of language. Linguistics covers a wide range of
 75

topics and its boundaries are difficult to define. Phonology, morphology,

syntax and semantics are „the bread and the butter‟ of linguistics. Aitchison
(Ibid.: 16) agrees with Crystal (Ibid.: 271) that phonetics is basic background
knowledge, rather than part of linguistics itself. Phonetics and linguistics are
sometimes referred to together as „linguistic sciences‟. At the same time,
Aitchison (Ibid.) excludes pragmatics from linguistics and regards it as
extralinguistics that links language with the external world.
Stern (1987:147) regards linguistics as an “active and growing field of
study, far from approaching a state of finality” . Where theories battle with
each other. New concepts, new models and changes come and go. A major
preoccupation of linguistics is the development of theory of language and
another is the creation of conceptual tools for the description of natural
languages in general.
The expansion of knowledge in so many directions has led since the
thirties down to the present to develop unified theories of language. In
addition, several schools have emerged round a few prominent linguists, for
example, (Saussure, Bloomfield, Firth, Halliday, Hjemslev, or Chomsky);
major centres of linguistic study, for example, (Prague School, Geneva
School, American Structuralism, London or British School, Copenhagen
School) and leading concepts, for example, (structuralism, tagmemics, scale-
and-category or systemic linguistcs, transformational generative grammar,
generative semantics), (Stern, 1987:134).
The discontent with traditional grammar resulted in evolving a new
approach to the study of language near the second quarter of the twentieth
century that is 'structural linguistics'. In this respect Liles (1985:5) states that
the advocates of this approach felt that it was necessary to study the structure
of a language as objective as possible without reference to any other
language, i.e., Greek and Latin, and they felt also that meaning is a poor
guide to the analysis of structure. Instead of talking about what a noun means
(the name of a person, place or thing), for instance, they began looking for
 76

other devices to identify nouns, such as, following determiners and having
plural endings. In general, they attempted to analyze other grammatical
elements in terms of „structure‟ rather than „meaning‟.
After the publication of Leonard Bloomfield's „Language‟ in 1933, the
term „linguistics‟ became popular as the name of the discipline that
concerned with the new scientific study of language. And the term 'linguist'
became specialized to mean only the person that study linguistics in that way
(Liles, 1985:6).
Bloomfield predominant concern was to establish linguistics truly as a
science of language. According to him linguistics was still ill-defined, the
tasks that he saw was needed was twofold: 1- to delimit the role of linguistics
in relation to other sciences and 2- to develop the principles and concepts of
linguistics into a well balanced and unified structure. Bloomfield wanted
linguistics to become an empirical and descriptive science. The principal
value lies in the closely argued and balanced presentation of the essential
concepts which enable the linguist to analyze a language from sound to
sentence (Hill, 1958) (cited in Stern, 1987:135). It is balanced in that it gives
approximately equal weight to the different levels of the analysis: phonology,
morphology and syntax. It omits, however the semantic component.
Stern (1987:136) selects an early version of a theory of the British
linguist, Michael Halliday, known as 'scale-and-category' or 'systemic' theory
as an alternative to Bloomfieldian linguistics. On the basis of Firthian ideas,
Halliday presents a combination of concepts which aims at being
theoretically powerful and at the same time useful to apply in the description
of natural languages. In his view a linguistic description is on three levels:
substance form and context. Three branches of linguistic study correspond to
these three levels: phonetics and phonology examine the phonic substance
(graphology the graphic); grammar and lexicology study the linguistic forms;
and semantics studies the context which relates linguistic form to non-
linguistic events.
 77

Two fundamental concepts underlie the entire theoretical framework,

i.e., the concept of „category‟ and the concept of „rank scale‟. Halliday set
four fundamental theoretical categories for the description of a language.
With the following categories: unit, structure, class and system it is possible
to describe the grammar of all languages. A „unit‟ is a stretch of utterance
that carries a grammatical pattern; in English, for example, sentence' or
„phrase‟ are grammatical units. „Structure‟ is an arrangement of elements in
relation to other elements, for example, „subject‟ and „predicate‟. „Class‟ is
illustrated by such paradigmatic concepts as „nouns‟ and „verbs‟; and
„system‟ is applied to closed sets of items, such as „the personal pronouns‟,
„tenses‟, or „aspects‟. Moreover, the concepts subsumed under the four
universal categories can in all languages be arranged in a rank order from
lowest to highest, a „rank scale‟. Thus, in the grammar of English one can
identify in ascending order „morpheme‟, „word‟, „phrase‟, „clause‟ and
„sentence‟; in phonology the rank scale has the units „phoneme‟, „syllable‟,
„foot‟, and „tone group‟ (Ibid.).
With the publication of Noam Chomsky's 'Syntactic Structures' in
1957, a new approach to the study of language was inaugurated. This newer
grammar has gone under various names: generative, transformational,
generative-transformational, and transformational-generative. Since then,
scholars have been so impressed by the importance and potential of
transformational grammar. The transformationalist is more concerned with
the system that underlies the language than he is with the actual speech of an
individual at any given time. Another way of stating this fact is to say that he
is interested in the speaker's „competence‟ or knowledge of the language,
rather than in „performance‟ or the actual use of it (Liles, 1985:6-8).
Chomsky's theory of grammar is undoubtedly the most dynamic and
influential. Every other 'school' of linguistics tends to define its position in
relation to Chomsky's view on particular issues (Lyons, 1977:9). Like his
teacher Zellig Harris, Chomsky was interested in linguistic analysis, and he
 78

believed with Harris that a linguistic analysis could be done without reference
to meaning. The primary purpose of “Syntactic Structure” was to investigate
an area in which structural linguistics had hitherto made only limited
progress, namely syntax. Structural linguistics had built up an impressive
technical apparatus for the study of phonology and morphology, but its
treatment of syntax was far less assured (Stern, 1987:140-1).

2.9 Characteristics of Linguistics

According to Kortmann (2005:4), an investigation of a language or

individual linguistic phenomena needs to take a clear decision on which
perspective to adopt, on the ultimate goals of the investigation and on the
amount and nature of the data analyzed. Central aspects of how to go about
the scientific study of language can be made clear with the help of
distinctions between pairs of related terms (or dichotomies):
- synchrony / diachrony;
- descriptive / perspective;
- form / function - language system / language use;
- language specific / comparative;
- empirical / introspective.
Hudson (1988:5-15) and other linguists emphasize the following
characteristics of linguistics which appear as distinctions (or dichotomies):
1- Time: synchronic and diachronic.
2- Correctness: description and prescription.
3- Generality: language and languages.
4- Objectivity: science and humanity.
As for the first feature, linguistics is time-sensitive in the sense it
makes a clear distinction between what is historical 'diachronic' and non-
historical (synchronic) questions. The fact is that languages change, they are
not static. If the facts of modern linguistics are mixed up with those about
 79

earlier stages of the language, there should be a danger of total confusion, for
this reason modern linguistics is time- sensitive (Ibid.:7).

The second quality of linguistics is that it is descriptive. In descriptive

approach, the investigation is either purely formal aspects, thus studying the
structure (or system) of a language on its different levels (sound, word,
sentence structure) in abstraction from language use or to investigate the
function of structure (Kortmann, 2005:5). For most of its long history the
study of language has been prescriptive, which means that its purpose has
been to tell people what they should say (or write) rather than simply to
record what people do say or write, as in descriptive linguistics (Ibid.:8).

The third characteristic of linguistics is that it is general, in that it aims

at producing generalizations about language. The hunt for generalizations
about languages is not restricted to historical linguistics and is in fact
characteristics of synchronic linguistics. This is the reason why often referred
to modern linguistics as „theoretical linguistics (Ibid.:9).

The last characteristic of modern linguistics is that it is objective.

According to Hudson (Ibid.:13) a prerequisite for this objectivity is
reasonably clear terminology. One of the things which strike newcomers to
linguistics is the wild proliferation (production or creation) of terminology.
“Most of this terminology is necessary if we take our aims seriously,
however, because ordinary language simply does not provide the terms we
need for talking objectively about language”.

2.9 Linguistic Terminology

Every discipline has its own technical vocabulary. Linguistics is no
exception. Most of the technical terms used by linguists arise in the course of
their work and are easily understood by those who approach the subject
 81

sympathetically and without prejudice. In this connection, Lyons (1999:46)

states that:
The objection is sometimes made that the terminology or jargon of linguistics is
unnecessarily complex. Why is the linguist so prone to the creation of new
terms? Why is he not content to talk about sounds, words and parts of speech,
instead of inventing such new technical terms as 'phoneme', 'morpheme', and
'form class' ?The answer is that most of the everyday terms that are used with
reference to language – many of which, incidentally, originated as technical
terms of traditional grammar – are imprecise or ambiguous… ,however, the
specialized vocabulary of linguistics, if it is kept under control and properly
used, serves to clarify, rather than to mystify.
Linguistics and terminology have many common characteristics.
But, Wuster through his work emphasizes the difference between
terminology and linguistics on several fronts in order to establish
terminology as an autonomous discipline:
a- Regarding language:
- the priority of the concept;
- the precision of concepts;
- the univocity of the term (absence of synonymy);
- the semiotic conception of designations;
- the exclusive interest in the lexicon, leaving aside other linguistic levels;
- the synchronic treatment of terms;
- the priority of written registers.
b- Regarding working methods:
The exclusive use of onomasiological approach (in contrast with the
semasiological approach of terminology) and hence a preference for
systematic ordering (Cabre, 2003: 166).
In comparison with other sciences such as physics and aerodynamics,
Bolinger (1979:554) regards linguistics as an adolescent science that has
temporarily out grown itself since there were no natural checks as there are in
physics or aerodynamics, where a mistake may cause a plane to crash or a
 81

bridge to collapse. He (Ibid.) distinguishes many signs of this immaturity,

among them the endless flow of terminology.

The traditional approach to terminology classification is the

classification on the subject or domain basis that has been the focus of most
classification research. For example, in linguistics, terms are classified in
terms of the main levels or branches of linguistics that they belong to:

Phonology is rather technical this is the reason of why it is found

difficult and cold in comparison with other levels of the linguistic analysis,
namely morphology, syntax and semantics. It requires from the beginning
command of another technical discipline, i.e., phonetics. Phonology is about
aspects that are basically phonetics, it requires the concepts, terminology and
notations of phonetics, in addition to, erecting on top of this a whole new set
of its own terms like, „phoneme‟, „cluster‟, „prosody‟, etc (Lass,1996:xiii).

In describing morphology, Bauer (1983:7) states that morphology has

been a part of the mainstream of linguistics and is a field of its own right with
extensive technical vocabulary such as „morph‟ and „allomorph‟. Most of the
terminology used in the study of morphology is, in fact, common to all
morphological studies and since a mass of terminology is inevitably
confusing, Bauer presents a flowchart to summarize some of the main
terminological information, see figure (2.1).

INFLECTIONAL
CLASS-MAINTAINING

MORPHOLOGY DERIVATIONAL
 82

In its broadest sense, syntax refers to both the arrangement and the
form of words. It is that part of language which links together the sound
patterns and meaning. Phonology, syntax and semantics together constitute
the grammar of a language. (Aitchison,1987:16). In this regard, Aitchison
(Ibid.) provokes a word of warning concerning terminology used in
linguistics, more strictly about differences of terminology by stating that the
term „grammar‟ in old textbooks has a more restricted use, it refers only to
what have been called „syntax‟, while syntax is restricted to the arrangement
of words. He considers the case to be a matter of „words gradually shifting
their meaning or extending their range‟ not as a matter of one linguist being
right or wrong.
Brown and Miller (1980:12) state that a refinement and redefinition
are needed of concepts and terms commonly used in a language description
for the sake of right illustration and description of a language. For instance,
the term „sentence‟, in ordinary usage refers sometimes to the actual
sequences of sounds produced by a speaker, sometimes it refers to an
orthographic unit, and sometimes to something much more abstract.

Furthermore, Lyons (1977: xi) puts across some difficulties

concerning linguistic terminology in semantics by stating that “one of the
biggest problems in writing is terminological”. He distinguishes two frequent
 83

cases in the literature of semantics and semiotics: the first is that the same
terms are employed in quite different senses by different authors (polysemy)
and the second is that there are different alternatives (terms) for what is
essentially the same phenomenon (synonymy).

While Hudson (1988:13) considers linguistic terminology a sign of

objectivity, Crystal (Crystal,1985:52) on his side, regards linguistic
terminology unfamiliar, when he states that the unfamiliar terminology which
linguists have devised to talk precisely about language-terms like „phoneme‟,
„morpheme‟, „nominal group‟, „bilabial fricative‟, „collocation‟, and so on
often disturbs enquiries. According to Crystal (Ibid.) these are often known as
„jargon‟ or „technical terms‟ is an essential part of any intellectual discipline;
and the terminology of linguistics is no more technical than that of many
other modern sciences, and certainly no more technical than the terminology
used in traditional grammar ( which was imprecise).

Many of the new terms and usages from several different studies of
linguistics in all its levels and branches thus become available to all learners
of English. Linguistics sets out to describe language. Any description needs
some terminology with which to set out its description. Some researchers
study terminology as part of applied linguistics as sub-class of the vocabulary
of a language placing it under many headings , such as, technical words or
terms, specialized vocabulary or English for special purpose. Others study
terminology within the domain of lexicology and lexicography (Holdsworth,
2000: 1).

In fact the situation of terminology is as follows: each set of terms

arises from a theory of some kind, and the theory and terminology together
predispose, i.e., influence an investigator to look at a language in certain way
(Wardhaugh,1977:9). In this regard, Kortmann (2005:6) states that it is
 84

important to be aware of the fact that the different approaches of studying

language often come with particular theories and models of language and
linguistics as a consequence of different viewpoints, methods and
terminology. For this reason, it is frequently the case that different terms co-
exist for one and the same phenomenon and that this phenomenon is judged
and interpreted in different ways by different people.

All languages description would draw on the same system of

organization, and the same terms and processes would be used in describing
them because of the general likeness. For this reason attempts have
sometimes been made to describe all languages within the same terminology.
For example, attempts have sometimes been made to describe English as
though every word must belong to one of eight parts of speech or in terms of
phonemes or morphemes which can be discovered by following a prescribe
set of procedures or through possibilities or impossibilities (Wardhaugh,
1977:9).

CHAPTER THREE

The Data Analysis

3.1 Introductory Notes

Since the English language has distributional regularity patterns which

restrict what phoneme can appear and where, including nowhere, as
determined by the language syntagmatic factors, thus it is worth studying
(Prince and Tesar, 2002:1). The main objective of this study is to explore and
analyze the consonant clustering patterns in English linguistic terms, thus, a
practical investigation is nacessary for uncovering these phonotactic facts.
 85

This chapter is concerned with the analysis of the selected corpus

phonotactically, more precisely with consonant clustering analysis. Instances
are extracted from various reference books on linguistics dealing with
phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. However, the present study
utilizes an eclectic model of consonant clusters analysis proposed by Gimson
(1989), Roach (2000), Kreidler (2003) and those who restrict their analyses
of consonant clusters to initial and final consonant cluster only.

In this regard, syllable boundaries are frequently coincide with word

boundaries that is only the clusters that can begin a syllable can begin a word,
and only a cluster that can end a syllable can end a word. As far as this study
is concerned, the analysis will be restricted to syllable-based consonant
clusters since constraints on consonant clusters are best understood in terms
of syllable and syllable structure. Consequently, the present study confines
itself to the analysis of initial and final consonant clusters only, i.e., medial
consonant clusters are beyond the scope of this analysis because such a kind
of cluster requires the word to be taken as the unit for the analysis. As far as
this study is concerned syllabic consonants are excluded. In the present
analysis, the English consonants are used according to the following
classification: obstruents (oral stops (plosives)(henceforth S) /p, b, t, d, k, g /;
fricatives (henceforth F) /f/ , /v/ , //, /ð/ , /s/ , /z/ , //, /3/ and /h/ ; affricates
/t/ and /d3/ ) and sonorants: nasals (henceforth N) /m/, /n/ and /ŋ/; glides
(henceforth G) /j/ and /w/ and liquids (henceforth L) /l/ and /r/).

The type of the transcription that is used in the analysis is the phonemic
transcription and the stress placement of the selected terms is shown by a
high small vertical mark at the beginning of a syllable in case of primary
stress and low small vertical mark at the beginning of the syllable in case of
secondary stress. In case of monosyllabic terms no stress marker is used.
Transcription of terms and stress placement are taken from British
 86

dictionaries by Hornby (2004) entitled “Oxford Advanced Learner's

Dictionary of Current English” and Trask (1996) entitled “A Dictionary of
Phonetics and Phonology”. The type of syllable division is characterized by
using dots between syllables depending on the orthographic form is also
adopted from these indispensable sources. Terms are arranged alphabetically
with respect to each level of linguistics, the type of alphabetical order used is
the one that ignores both hyphens and spaces between words.

The traditional approach to terminology classification is the

classification on the subject or domain basis that has been the focus of most
classification research. For example, in linguistics, terms are classified in
terms of the main levels or branches of linguistics that they belong to into:
phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic.

3.2 The Phonotactic Analysis of the Data

3.2.1 Analysis of the Phonological Terms
Text No.1
“Cluster:a term used in the analysis of CONNECTED SPEECH to refer to any
sequence of adjacent … occurring INITIALLY or FINALLY in a syllable … Not
all possible combinations of consonants occur in a LANGUAGE.”
( Crystal, 2003:77)
The term: cluster
Transcription: /'klstə /
Number of syllable(s): two
Syllable division: (clus.ter)
Syllable Structure: ccvccv
 87

Position of the cluster: initial-consonant cluster (ccv-)

Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: (consonant + /l/)
The phonotactic formula: initial + post-initial

ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

 k l

Normally within the domain of consonant cluster, a syllable-based

consonant cluster analysis has two positions to consider: initial and final. In
this connection, the present term has two-consonant cluster in its onset which
represents the cluster type (consonant+/l/), i.e., /k/ + /l/, the former is a stop
(plosive) whereas the latter is called „lateral‟. Following Roach (2000:61),the
phonotactic formula and its diagram are shown above.
Text No. 2
“Lax: One of the features of sound set up by JAKOBSON and Halle in their
DISTICTIVE FEATURE theory of PHONOLOGY, to handle variations in

MANNER OF ARTICULATION”.

(Ibid.:261)
The term: lax
Transcription: /læks/
Number of syllable(s): one
Syllable division: (lax)
Syllable Structure: cvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: SF (stop+fricative) (two obstruents)
The following phonotactic formula: pre-final + final
 88

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
k s  

It can be seen from the transcription above that this phonological term
is a monosyllabic one. In this regard something should be said here about
syllables and words is that in SE word boundaries always correlate with
syllable boundaries. However, this term terminates with two- consonant
cluster of the type (stop /k/+fricative/s/) in its coda as shown in the above
diagram.

Text No.3
“We thus distinguish length (a durational property of segments) from
quantity (a structural property of syllables). And in the OE examples it's
clearly the latter that's relevant”.
(Lass, 1996: 254)

The term: length

Transcription: /leŋ/
Number of syllable(s): one
Syllable division: (length)
Syllable Structure: cvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: NC (nasal+consonant)
The phonotactic formula: final+post-final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
 89

 ŋ  

The present phonological term at hand represents another type of two

final consonant cluster that consists of the velar nasal /ŋ/ plus the voiceless
dental //. In this respect, consider the following restriction: if a final
consonant cluster consists of an obstruent (S or F) and a sonorant (L or N) the
sonorant precedes the obstruent.

Text No.4
“Crudely, onsets are mirrors-images of codas. To put it in more detail, taking
O, Co as margins and P as nucleus, we get a 'templet' for syllables in which
the more sonorous or vowel-like elements … tend to occur closer to the
nucleus, and least sonorous further away”.
(Ibid.:264)
The term: margins

Transcription: / 'ma:d3ɪnz /
Number of syllable(s): two
Syllable division: (mar.gins)
Syllable Structure: cvcvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: NC (nasal+consonant)
The phonotactic formula: final+post-final

CODA

pre-final final post-finial post-final

(1) (2)
 n z 
 91

A glance at the above syllable division shows that this term consists of
two syllables; the first syllable does not have any consonant cluster in its
initial position and final position. The second syllable ends with two
consonants, the first consonant is the nasal /n/ and the second is the voiced
fricative /z/. In this respect, when a nasal is followed by another consonant,
usually an obstruent, it must be homorganic with the nasal, i.e., the
articulatory location of both consonants is identical.

Text No.5
“To put it in more detail, taking O, Co as margins and P as nucleus, we get a
'template' for syllables in which the more sonorous or vowel-like elements
tend to be near the nucleus, and the least sonorous further away.”
(Ibid.)
The term: nucleus

Transcription: / 'nju:klɪəs /
Number of syllable(s): two
Syllable division: (nu.cleus)
Syllable Structure: ccvccvc
Position of the cluster: initial- consonant cluster (ccv-)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: (consonant+/j/)
The phonotactic formula: initial + post-initial
ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

 n j

This term gives another sort of two- consonant cluster in the onset of its
first syllable which consists of the nasal /n/ plus the glide /j/. More could be
 91

said about the phonetic structure of this phonological term by explaining its
sonority context. In general, speech sounds can be ranked in terms of their
intrinsic sonority according to a hierarchical sonority scale. Two important
principles are derived from this hierarchical scale. They are the SSP and
SDP. The SSP requires onset to rise in sonority towards the nucleus, this can
be best explained in respect to this term, i.e., if two consonants precede the
nucleus the more sonorous of the two adjoins the nucleus and the less
sonorous occupy the farther position.

Text No. 6
“Phonotactics . Statement of permissible strings of phonemes (e.g. clusters,
sequences, distributional restrictions, admissible syllable types). ”
(Ibid.:21)
The term: phonotactics

Transcription: / fəʊnə'tæktɪks /
Number of syllable(s): four
Syllable division: (phon.ot.act.ics)
Syllable Structure: cvcvcvccvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: SF (stop+fricative) (two obstruents)
The phonotactic formula: pre-final + final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
k s  
 92

This multisyllabic phonological term ends in its last syllable with the
voiceless stop /k/ plus the voiceless fricative /s/ where /k/ precedes the /s/.
This type of a cluster exhibits the unique behaviour of /s/ in violating the
sonority scale ,i.e., according to the sonority scale in post-vocalic position,
the SSP requires a coda to fall in sonority after the nucleus, accordingly, /s/
must precede /k/, since /s/ is more sonorant than /k/. Consider the above
phonotactic formula and its diagram.

Text No. 7
“Following terminology introduced by J. R. Firth (1948), we will call these
larger- than –segment elements prosodies. ”

(Ibid.:239)

The term: prosody

Transcription: / 'prosədɪ /
Number of syllable(s): three
Syllable division: (pro.so.dy)
Syllable Structure: ccvcvcv
Position of the cluster: initial- consonant cluster (ccv-)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: (consonant + /r/)
The phonotactic formula: initial + post-initial

ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

 p r
 93

It can be seen from the diagram above that this phonological term
begins with the cluster (pr-) which represents the phonotactic pattern (stop
consonant /p/ + liquid /r/). This pattern conforms to both the SSP and the
SDP since liquids come before stops in the sonority scale and since there is a
sonority degree between liquids and stops, i.e., the degree for fricatives.

Text No.8
“(quantity): A term used in phonology to refer to the relative DURATION of
sounds and SYLLABLES when these are linguistically contrastive … as seen
in such notions as 'long' v. 'short' consonants and GEMINATION. ”

(Crystal,2003:383)

The term: quantity

Transcription: /'kwDntətɪ/
Number of syllable(s): three
Syllable division: (qwan.ti.ty)
Syllable Structure: ccvccvcv
Position of the cluster: initial- consonant cluster (ccv-)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: (consonant+/w/)
The phonotactic formula: initial + post-initial

ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

 k w
 94

Another sort of two- initial consonant cluster is represented by the first

syllable of this multisyllabic word of the clustering type (consonant+ /w/)
where the voiceless stop /k/ is followed by the glide /w/ in the onset position.
What is most noteworthy in this type of a cluster and the other three types of
two- initial consonant cluster, i.e., ( cr, cl, cj), are their conformity to both the
SSP and SDP.

Text No.9
“When we speak, we produce a continuous stream of sounds. In studying
speech we divide this stream into small pieces that we call segments. ”
(Roach,2000:36)

The term: segment

Transcription: / 'segmənt /
Number of syllable(s): two
Syllable division: ( seg.ment )
Syllable Structure: cvccvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: NC (nasal+consonant)
The phonotactic formula: pre-final + final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
n t  

It has been pointed out previously that there are two main principles of
the sonority scale; the SSP has been dealt with before, but there still another
principle that plays an important role in defining a well-formed word initial
 95

onset, it is the (SDP). A minimum sonority distance has to be determined. In

the English language, the two consonants in a word-initial cluster have to be
separated by at least one sonority rank. In this regard, the cluster in this term
conforms to both of the afore-mentioned principles.

Text No. 10
“Many experiments have been carried out on the perception of stress, and it
is clear that many different sound characteristics are important in making a
syllable recognizably stressed. From the perceptual point of view, all stressed
syllables have one characteristic in common, and that is prominence.”
(Ibid.: 85-6)
The term: stress
Transcription: / stres /
Number of syllable(s): one
Syllable division: (stress)
Syllable Structure: cccvc
Position of the cluster: initial- consonant cluster (cccv-)
Number of the consonant cluster: three- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: (/s/+consonant+/r/)
The phonotactic formula: pre-initial+initial+post-initial
ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

s t r

Generally speaking, three initial consonant clusters undergo high

restrictions in English where there are only nine types of this kind of a
cluster. A powerful example of (cccv-) in this investigation appears in this
phonological term and it is presented in the initial cluster str- which displays
the unique behaviour of the voiceless fricative /s/ in combining with other
 96

consonants to form such a kind of cluster. Moreover, it also shows the

characteristic of /s/ in violating the SSP and SDP.

3.2.2 Analysis of the Morphological Terms

Text No.1
“If different morphs represent the same morpheme, they are grouped together
and they are called allomorphs of that morpheme”.

(Katamba,1993:23)
The term: allomorphs

Transcription: / 'æləmɔ:fs /
Number of syllable(s): three
Syllable division: (allo.morphs)
Syllable Structure: vcvcvcc
Position of the consonant cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: FF (fricative+fricative) (two obstruents)
The phonotactic formula: final+post-final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
 f s 

Phonologically speaking, this morphological term consists of three

syllables where the last syllable ends with an obstruent fricative /f/. Having
the plural endings /s/ increases the number of consonants in the coda into two
consonants. In this respect, two obstruents at the end of a syllable must agree
in voicing or have the same articulators, in this case they have to be
voiceless.
 97

Text No.2
“When a new word is formed by combining the meaning and also the sound
of two words, the process is known as blending”.
(Thakur, 2002: 73)
The term: blending

Transcription: / 'blendɪŋ /
Number of syllable(s): two
Syllable division: ( blend.ing )
Syllable Structure: ccvccvc
Position of the cluster: initial (ccv-) and final-consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: ( consonant + /l/ ) and NC (nasal+consonant)
The phonotactic formulas: ( initial + post-initial) and (pre-final+final)

ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

 b l

A quick look at the above figure indicates that this morphological term
has two syllables: the first syllable begins with two consonants. The former is
the voiced stop /b/ (less sonorous) and the latter, adjacent with the nucleus, is
the liquid /l/ (more sonorous) thus, this cluster obeys the hierarchical scale of
sonority. Furthermore, it ends also with the two-final cluster NC
(nasal+consonant /d/).

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
n d  
 98

Text No.3
“First, I outline in general terms some of the factors which frustrate the
application of a word-formation process whose condition of application
appear to be met. The cover term 'blocking' is used for these factors. ”
(Katamba, 1993: 72)

The term: blocking

Transcription: / 'blDkɪŋ /
Number of syllable(s): two
Syllable division: (block.ing)
Syllable Structure: ccvcvc
Position of the cluster: initial- consonant cluster (ccv-)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: (consonant + /l/)
The phonotactic formula: initial + post-initial

ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

 b l

Adding a similar example of the pattern (ccv-), lies at the beginning of

the morphological term 'blocking' which begins with the cluster /bl/ in its first
syllable, this pattern follows the (SSP), since the more sonorant liquid /l/
follows the less sonorant stop / b/ and also follows the (SDP), since there is at
least a sonority rank between stops and liquids.

Text No.4
 99

“Bound: a term used as part of the classification of MORPHEMES; opposed to

FREE. Abound morpheme (or bound form) is one which cannot occur in its

own as a separate WORD, e.g. the various affixes de-, -tion, -ize, etc.”

(Crystal,2003:56)
The term: bound

Transcription: /baʊnd /
Number of syllable(s): one
Syllable division: (bound)
Syllable Structure cvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: NC (nasal+consonant)
The phonotactic formula: pre-final + final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
n d  

Taking a look at the above diagram reveals that the morphological term
„bound‟ has the final cluster /n/+/d/ which represents the pattern (nasal +
stop). In this regard, if a nasal is followed by an obstruent both of the two
consonants have to be homorganic, i.e., have the same articulators.

Text No.5
 111

“Class-maintaining: a process of derivation produces lexemes which belong

to the same form class as the base.”
(Thakur, 2002: 31)

The term: class-maintaining

Transcription: /klæs 'meɪnteɪnɪŋ /

Number of syllable(s): (one) (three)
Syllable division: (class) (main.tain.ing)
Syllable Structure: (ccvc) (cvccvcvc)
Position of the cluster: initial- consonant cluster (ccv-)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: (consonant+/l/)
The phonotactic formula: initial+post-initial

ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

 k l

Commenting on this compound term, it has the initial cluster

(consonant + /l/ ) in the onset of its first member, however, this sequence
follows the sonority hierarchy, which requires the more sonorous (the liquid
/l/) to adjoin the nucleus and the less sonorous to come in the margin, i.e.,
the voiceless stop /k/.

Text No.6
 111

“The process whereby a word is made smaller without any change in

meaning or its grammatical class is called clipping”.
(Ibid.:71)
The term: clipping

Transcription: / 'klɪpɪŋ /
Number of syllables: two
Syllable division: (clip.ping)
Syllable Structure: ccvcvc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: (consonant + /l/)
The phonotactic formula: initial + post-initial

ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

 k l

Apparently, this disyllabic term has the same initial cluster (consonant
+ /l/) of the previous term in its first syllable. Like all two-initial consonant
cluster except for the (/s/ + consonant) cluster, it follows both principles of
sonority.

Text No. 7
“At one time, establishing mechanical procedures for the identification of
morphemes was considered a realistic goal by structural linguists.”
(Katamba, 1993: 23)
 112

The term: morphemes

Transcription: / 'mɔ:fi:mz /
Number of syllable(s): two
Syllable division: (mor.phemes)
Syllable Structure: cvcvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: NC (nasal+consonant)
phonotactic formula: final + post-final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
 m z 

In comparison with the other phonological terms the present term

„morphemes‟ parallels with the phonological term „phonemes‟, both of them
have the same phonotactic distribution in the final position, i.e., the nasal /m/
plus the fricative consonant /z/.

Text No.8
“A prefix is an affix attached before a root or a stem or a base like re-, un-,
and in-.”
(Ibid.:44)
The term: prefix
Transcription: / 'pri:fiks /
Number of syllable(s): two
Syllable division: (pre.fix)
Syllable Structure: ccvcvcc
 113

Position of the cluster: initial (ccv-) and final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: initially (consonant+/r/) and finally SF (stop+fricative)
phonotactic formulas: (initial+post-initial) and (pre-final+final)

A glance at this morphological term shows that it has two syllables:

the first syllable has the cluster (/p/+/r/) in the onset position; however, the
following phonotactic pattern represents the distribution of its consonants:
initial+post-initial ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

 p r

As for the second syllable, it has two-consonant cluster as its coda

position which consists of the voiceless stop /k/ and the voiceless fricative /s/.
An important phonotactic fact that has to be mentioned is that all final
clusters of two obstruents are voiceless.
CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
k s  

A general phonological investigation of this term indicates that when a

vowel is preceded by two consonants, the more sonorous of the two adjoins
the vowel, as in the initial position of this term. The same is true when the
vowel is followed by two consonants, as in the final position of this term.
Text No. 9
“A stem is of concern only when dealing with inflectional morphology…It is
the part of the word form which remains when all inflectional affixes have
been removed.”

(Bauer, 1983:20)
 114

The term: stem

Transcription: / stem /
Number of syllable(s): one
Syllable division: (stem)
Syllable Structure: ccvc
Position of the cluster: initial- consonant cluster (ccv-)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: (/s/+consonant)
The phonotactic formula: pre-initial + initial

ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

s t 

The only exceptions to the rule stated in the previous term are the
(/s/+consonant) clusters, namely sp-, st-, sk-, sf- initially where the less
sonorous, i.e., the voiceless stops or fricative /f/ adjoin the nucleus, this is due
to the unique behaviour of /s/. Moreover, /s/ does not conform to the rule
which says that consonants (in word initial clusters) with the same place of
articulation do not stand next to each other. /s/ being an alveolar sound, freely
combines with the alveolar /t/ despite the shared point of articulation,
however, this example is best represented of this case.
Text No. 1o
“A suffix is an affix attached after a root (or stem or base) like –ly, -er, -ist, -
s, -ing and –ed.”
(Ibid.:44)

The term: suffix

Transcription: / sfɪks /
 115

Number of syllable(s): two

Syllable division: (suf.fix)
Syllable Structure: cvcvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)

Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster

Type of the cluster: SF (stop+fricative) (two obstruents)
The phonotactic formula: pre-final + final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
k s  

From a phonotactic viewpoint, this term has the final consonant cluster
/k/+/s/ which consists of the voiceless stop /k/ and the voiceless fricative /s/.
In final clusters (codas) the most sonorous sound adjoins the nucleus,
accordingly, this term is regarded as violating the SSP and also the SDP
because the less sonorous /k/ comes after the nucleus immediately and also
there is no sonority distance between stops and fricatives.

3.2.3 Analysis of the Syntactic Terms

Text No.1
“Since adjunct is one type of adverbial function, you should not be
surprised to learn that, in addition to PPS, ADVERB PHRASES (Adv P) can
also function as adjunct adverbials.”
(Burton,1998:102)
The term: adjunct
Transcription: / 'ædЗŋkt /
 116

Number of syllable(s): two

Syllable division: (ad.junct)
Syllable Structure: vcvccc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vccc)
Number of the consonant cluster: three- consonant cluster
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vccc)
Type of the cluster: NSS (nasal+stop+stop)
The phonotactic formula: pre-final+final+post-final

CODA

pre-final pre-final final post-final

(1) (2)
ŋ k t 

Three consonants combine to form the clustering pattern ( N S S ), i.e.,

they are: the nasal velar /ŋ/, the stop velar /k/ and the stop alveolar /t/,
respectively. Notice that the nasal and the adjoining consonant have the same
place of articulation, however, the two first consonants follow the SSP and
SDP respectively, but the third consonant with the preceding one violate the
second rule because both of them are stops. Notice also that if this term is
pluralized, the cluster will increase to four-consonant cluster as in (adjuncts).

Text No.2
“Every clause has a verb. So we can identify clauses in terms of their verbs
….a clause can simultaneously be SUBordinate to one clause and
SUPERordinate to another”

(Ibid.:191)

The term: clause

Transcription: / klɔ:z /
 117

Number of syllable(s): one

Syllable division: (clause)
Syllable Structure: ccvc
Position of the cluster: initial- consonant cluster (ccv-)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: (consonant+/l/)
The phonotactic formula: initial + post-initial

ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

 k l

As demonstrated in the previous figure, this syntactic term of the type

of two-initial consonant cluster (consonant + /l/). In general all initial-
consonant clustes follow the SSP and the SDP except those clusters that
begin with the voiceless fricative /s/ plus stops and /s/ plus the fricative /f/.

Text No.3
"Syntactically a command is a sentence which typically has no subject, and
where the verb is in the IMPERATIVE MOOD, e.g. come here!

(Crystal,2003:83)

The term: command

Transcription: /kə'ma:nd/
Number of syllable(s): two
Syllable division: (com.mand)
 118

Syllable Structure: cvcvcc

Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: NC (nasal+consonant)
The phonotactic formula: pre-final+final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
n d  

The preceding diagram constitutes another picture of the clustering

pattern (-vcc) in which the syntactic term 'command' has two syllables. The
cluster lies at the end of the second syllable combines both the nasal /n/ and
the voiced fricative /d/ in the same phonological environment. Notice that
both of these two consonants agree in voicing.

Text No.4
“Complements typically follow their heads in English. Modifiers, by
contrast, can precede or follow their heads. ”
(Burton,1998:43)

The term: complement

Transcription: / 'kDmplɪmənt /
Number of syllable(s): three
Syllable division: (com.ple.ment)
Syllable Structure: cvcccvcvcc
 119

Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)

Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: NC (nasal+consonant)
The phonotactic formulas: (pre-final + final)

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
n t  

A glance at this syntactic term reveals that it has three syllables.The

first syllables has no cluster whereas the second has a cluster in its initial
position and the third has a cluster in its final position. The former sequence
consists of (/p/+/l/) while the latter sequence consists of the cluster type
(nasal/n/ +stop /t/) these sequences conform to both SSP and SDP.

Text No.5
"This book is concerned with SYNTACTIC STRUCTUR, that is, with analyzing
linguistic expressions into their constituents, and determining their
functions."
(Ibid.:10)
The term: constituent

Transcription: / kən'stɪtjuənt/
Number of syllable(s): three
Syllable division: (con.stit.uent)
Syllable Structure: cvcccvccvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
 111

Type of the cluster: NC (nasal+consonant)

The phonotactic formulas: (final+post-final)

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
n t  

To start with, the first syllable of this term has no cluster unlike the
second one which begin with the initial cluster of the type (/s/+ consonant).
However, there is a cluster at the end of the final syllable of this syntactic
term which represents a repeated picture of the pattern (-vcc). In this cluster,
the two consonants are the nasal /n/ and the voiceless stop /t/. As far as the
SSP is concerned, the clusters in this term follow this principle, besides, they
also follow the SDP.

Text No.6
“I have said that PHRASE is a sequence of words that can function as a
CONSTITUENT in the structure of sentences.”

(Ibid.:18)

The term: phrase

Transcription: / freɪz /
Number of syllable(s): one
Syllable division: (phrase)
Syllable Structure: ccvc
Position of the cluster: initial- consonant cluster (ccv-)
 111

Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster

Type of the cluster: (consonant+/r/)
The phonotactic formula: initial + post-initial

ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

 f r

Taking a look at the diagram above shows that this monosyllabic term
has two initial consonant cluster of the type (consonant + /r/) where the first
consonant is the fricative /f/ which has less sonority than the liquid; moreover
the SDP is also kept in this initial cluster.

Text No.7
“We see that the pronoun they has assumed the position and function of a
full NP. So they is itself an example of a one-word NP. In terms of a phrase-
marker it would be represented …, with PRONOUN abbreviated to PRO. ”

(Ibid.:61)
The term: pronoun

Transcription: /'prəʊnaʊn/
Number of syllable(s) two
Syllable division: (pro.noun)
Syllable Structure: ccvcvc
Position of the cluster: initial- consonant cluster (ccv-)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
 112

Type of the cluster: (nasal+consonant)

The phonotactic formula: initial + post-initial

ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

 p r

Unlike the preceding term, this one has a new initial consonant cluster
at the beginning of the first syllable of this disyllabic word that consists of the
voiceless stop /p/ plus the liquid /r/. Like all initial clusters that can be
represented in this general pattern (consonant+ (/l/), (/r/), (/j/) or (/w/) the
more sonorous takes the inside position adjacent the nucleus of the syllable
and the less sonorous occupy the margin.

Text No. 8
“This can be shown by asking whether the relationship between a sentence
and its words is direct, or whether it is indirect.”

(Ibid.:10)

The term: sentence

Transcription: / 'sentəns /
Number of syllable(s): two
Syllable division: (sen.tence)
Syllable Structure: cvccvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: NC (nasal+consonant)
The phonotactic formula: pre-final + final
 113

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
n s  

A glance at this term shows that it ends with the clustering pattern (nasal
+ consonant) in its second syllable, the nasal is /n/ and the consonant in this
pattern is the voiceless fricative /s/. In this final position the consonant that
comes after the nasal has to be homorganic with it.

Text No. 9
“In making the first division I have divided these sentences into two
constituents, the first of which is traditionally said to function as SUBJECT
and the second as PREDICATE.”
(Ibid.:30-1)
The term: subject

Transcription: /'sbdЗɪkt / (noun)

Number of syllables: two
Syllable division: (sub.ject)
Syllable Structure: cvccvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: SS (stop+stop) (two obstruents)
The phonotactic formula: initial + post-initial

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
 114

As exhibited in the above drawing, there are two obstruents combine

together in final position which have to be voiceless. In addition to that the
existence of two stops, i.e., /k/ and /t/ violates both, the SSP and SDP. This
is the phonotactic context at the end of the second syllable of this disyllabic
word as illustrated in the above phonotactic formula.

Text No. 10
“Syntax is traditionally the name given to the study of the form, positioning,
grouping of the elements that go to make up sentences.”

(Ibid.:3)
The term: syntax

Transcription: /'sɪntæks /
Number of syllable(s): two
Syllable division: (syn.tax)
Syllable Structure: cvccvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: SF (stop+fricative)
The phonotactic formula: pre-final + final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
k s  
 115

As confirmed in the above phonotactic formula and its diagram this

syntactic term terminates with the two- consonant cluster /k/ +/s/ which
represents the clustering pattern (stop + fricative ) in final position. However,
this word does not conform neither to the ranking scale of sonority nor to the
SDP.

3.2.4 Analysis of the Semantic Terms

Text No.1
“In fact, it is commonly accepted that for many lexemes an exclusive analysis
into binary features that are at the same time primitive, general and
linguistically motivated, is impossible. Such features are called classemes, or
markers.”
(Lobner,2002:138)
The term: classeme

Transcription: / 'klasi:m /
Number of syllable(s): two
Syllable division: (class.eme)
Syllable Structure: ccvcvc
Position of the cluster: initial - consonant cluster (ccv-)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: (consonant+/l/)
The phonotactic formula: initial + post-initial

ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

 k l
 116

An investigation of the syllable division shown above indicates that

this semantic term consists of two syllables. The first one begins with the
consonant cluster (consonant /k/ + liquid /l/), whereas the second is empty of
any kind of a cluster neither initially nor finally, however, the situation with
the second syllable may change if the term is pluralized, thus, it will have
another cluster at the end of the second syllable.

Text No. 2
“The meaning is therefore a mental description. For mental descriptions in
general, the term concept will be used. A concept for a kind, or category, of
entities is information in the mind that allows us to discriminate entities of
that kind from entities of other kinds.”

(Lobner, 2002: 20)

The term: concept
Transcription: / 'kDnsept/
Number of syllable(s): two
Syllable division: (con.cept)
Syllable Structure: cvccvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: SS (stop+stop) (two obstruents)
The phonotactic formula: pre-final + final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
p t  
 117

This diagram reflects the fact that this semantic term follows the
clustering pattern: (stop + stop), where the whole cluster does not fulfill the
requirements of both the SSP and SDP. Because of the existence of two
consecutive stops in this sequence.

Text No. 3
“Field: a term used in semantics to refer to the vocabulary of a LANGUAGE
viewed as a SYSTEM of interrelated LEXICAL networks and not as an
inventory independent ITEMS.”
(Crystal, 2003:179)
The term: field
Transcription: / fi:ld /
Number of syllable(s): one
Syllable division: (field)
Syllable Structure: cvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: LS (/l/+stop)
The phonotactic formula: pre-final + final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
l d  

Another type of the phonotactic formula: pre-final + final is

represented in this semantic term, in addition to that this sort of two-
 118

consonant cluster in the final position appears for the first time in the present
analysis where the liquid /l/ is followed by the stop /d/. Nevertheless, this sort
of final cluster obeys both the SSP and the SDP, besides both of the adjacent
sounds are voiced.

Text No.4
“Idioms involve collocation of a special kind. Consider, for instance, kick the
bucket, fly off the handle, spill the beans, red herring. For here we not only
have the collocation of kick and the bucket, but also the fact that the meaning
of the resultant combination is opaque….”
(Palmer, 1988: 79)
The term: idioms

Transcription: / 'ɪdɪəmz /
Number of syllable(s): two
Syllable division: (idioms)
Syllable Structure: vcvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: NC (nasal+consonant)
The phonotactic formula: final + post-final
CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
 m z 

The drawing above contributes as an example of the final clustering

pattern (-vcc) where the nasal /m/ plus the voiced fricative /z/ constitute the
cluster at the end of this term, however, it conforms to the SSP since the more
sonorous /m/ in the inside position next to the vowel of the syllable, but it
 119

does not conform to the SDP since there is no ranking degree between nasals
and fricatives, i.e., fricatives come immediately after nasals in the sonority
scale in the post-vocalic position.

Text No.5
" The connection between a sentence, its proposition and its truth conditions
can be put as follows: the descriptive meaning of the sentence is its
proposition, and the proposition determines the truth conditions of the
sentence."
(Lobner, 2002:26)
The term: proposition

Transcription: / prDpə'zɪn/
Number of syllable(s): three
Syllable division: (prop.os.ition)
Syllable Structure: ccvcvcvcc
Position of the cluster: initial - consonant cluster (ccv-)
Number of the consonant cluster: two - consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: (consonant+/r/)
The phonotactic formula: initial+post-initial

ONSET

pre-initial initial post-initial

 p r

By investigating the syllable structure of this term, the analysis reveals

that there is an initial consonant cluster at the beginning of the first syllable
of this polysyllabic word that consists of the voiceless stop /p/ plus the liquid
/r/. Like all initial clusters that can be represented in this general pattern
(consonant+ (/l/), (/r/), (/j/) or (/w/) the more sonorous takes the inside
 121

position adjacent the nucleus of the syllable and the less sonorous occupy the
margin.

Text No. 6
“Reference deals wit the relationship between the linguistic elements…..and
the non-linguistic world of experience.”
(Palmer, 1988: 29)

The term: reference

Transcription: / 'refrəns /
Number of syllable(s): two
Syllable division: (refe.rence)
Syllable Structure: cvccvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: NC (nasal+consonant)
The phonotactic formula: pre-final + final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
n s  

Adding a similar example, the cluster found at the end of this

semantic term is the same as the cluster found at the end of the syntactic term
'sentence'. Phonologically speaking, this term has three syllables in addition
to that the cluster lies at the end of the third syllable belongs to the
phonotactic pattern (-vcc) where voiceless fricative /s/ comes after the nasal
/n/. According to the sonority principles this cluster only obeys the SSP, but
not the SDP.
 121

Text No. 7
“Sense relates to the complex system of relationships between the linguistic
elements (mostly the words); it is concerned only with itra-linguistic
relations.”
(Ibid.)

The term: sense

Transcription: / sens /
Number of syllable(s): one
Syllable division: (sense)
Syllable Structure: cvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: NC (nasal+consonant)
The phonotactic formula: pre-final + final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
n s  

One more similar example, the cluster found at the end of this semantic
term is the same as the cluster found at the end of the previous semantic term
'reference'. Phonologically speaking, this term has only one syllable. Besides,
the cluster lies at the end of this syllable belongs to the phonotactic pattern (-
vcc), in the present term, it consists of the nasal /n/ plus the voiceless
fricative /s/.

Text No. 8
 122

“Semantics is the technical term used to refer to the study of meaning, and,
since meaning is part of language, semantics is a part of linguistics.”

(Ibid.: 1)
The term: semantics

Transcription: / sɪ'mæntɪks /
Number of syllable(s): three
Syllable division: (se.man.tics)
Syllable Structure: cvcvccvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)

Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster

Type of the cluster: SF (stop+fricative) (two obstruents)
The phonotactic formula: pre-final + final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
k s  

The transcribed form of this semantic term shows that /k/ and /s/
constitute the cluster at the end of this term which follows the pattern (stop +
fricative). However, this term does not conform neither to the SSP nor to the
SDP because of the unique behaviour of /s/ in violating the first principle and
because there is no sonority rank between stops and fricatives.

Text No. 9
 123

“It can, however, be maintained that there are no real synonyms, that no two
words have exactly the same meaning. Indeed it would seem unlikely that
two words with exactly the same meaning would both survive in a language”
(Ibid.:89)

The term: synonyms

Transcription: / 'sɪnənɪmz /
Number of syllable(s): three
Syllable division: (sy.no.nyms)
Syllable Structure: cvcvcvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: NC (nasal+consonant)
The phonotactic formula: final + post-final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
 m z 

Taking a glance at the diagram above reveals that the cluster at the end
of the second syllable of this disyllabic term is built up as a result of the
plurality process which requires the suffix (-s) to be pronounced /z/ after
voiced sounds according to certain morphophonemic rules.

Text No. 10
 124

“Dictionaries appear to be concerned with stating the meanings of the words

and it is therefore, reasonable to assume that the word is one of the basic
units of semantics.”
(Ibid.: 32)
The term: words
Transcription: / wз:dz /
Number of syllable(s): one
Syllable division: (words)
Syllable Structure: cvcc
Position of the cluster: final- consonant cluster (-vcc)
Number of the consonant cluster: two- consonant cluster
Type of the cluster: SF (stop+fricative) (two obstruents)
The phonotactic formula: final+post-final

CODA

pre-final final post-final post-final

(1) (2)
 d z 

0bviously, the above diagram demonstrates that the voiced stop /d/ is
followed by the voiced fricative /z/ to form the phonotactic pattern (nasal +
fricative) in the final position of this term. Notice that both of these two
consonants, i.e., /d/ and /z/ agree in voicing which is an important
phonotactic restriction in English for every two obstruents ending a syllable.
Notice also that this cluster is the resultant of the plurality process which
always increases the number and the type of consonant clusters in final
position in English.

3.3 Results
 125

From the phonotactic analysis conducted in this chapter on (40)

linguistic terms divided equally on phonological, morphological, syntactic
and semantic levels of linguistics ( 10 for each level), the statistical findings
are as follows: the total number of the consonant clusters in the data is (41).
The number of initial- consonant clusters is (16) which constitutes the
percentage of (39.024). The number of final-consonant clusters is (25)
which composes the percentage of (60.976).
By investigating the findings of initial-consonant clusters separately
the analysis reveals that two-initial consonant cluster is the prevailing type in
the data under analysis, the frequency of occurrence is (15) out of (16) which
forms the percentage of (93.75) . In return, three- initial consonant cluster
takes number (1) out of (16) which represents the percentage of (6.25)
represented only in the phonological term „stress‟. Going back to two-initial
consonant cluster, the phonotactic pattern (initial+post-initial) is the
dominating one, it takes number (14) out of (15) whereas the phonotactic
pattern (pre-initial+initial) has only one example which is represented in the
morphological term „stem‟. see table (3.1).

Table. (3.1) The Phonotactic Formulas and Types of

Initial Consonant Clusters

Term Pre-initial Initial Post-initial

Phonological Terms
cluster _ k l
nucleus _ n j
prosody _ p r
quantity _ k w
stress s t r
 126

Morphological Terms
blending _ b l
blocking _ b l
clipping _ k l
class-maintaining _ k l
prefix _ p r
stem s t _
Syntactic Terms
clause _ k l
phrase _ f r
pronoun _ p r
Semantic Terms
classeme _ k l
proposition _ p r

A glance at table (3.3) shows that initial-consonant cluster of the type

(consonant+/l/) takes number (7) which comprises the percentage (46.666),
(consonant+/r/) takes (5), i.e., (33.333) and each of (consonant+/w/) and
(consonant+/j/) takes only (1) which forms the percentage (6.666) for each
one. The only example of the pattern (/s/+consonant) is represented in the
morphological term „stem‟ which constitutes the percentage (6.666).
consider table (3.2).

Table (3.2) Numbers and Percentages of Initial-Two

Consonant Clusters
 127

Type of the Cluster Number Percentage

Consonant + /l/ 7 46.666%
Consonant + /r/ 5 33.333%
Consonant + /j/ 1 6.666%
Consonant + /w/ 1 6.666%
/s/ +consonant 1 6.666%
Total 15 99.997%

In conducting the same statistical processes with final-consonant

clusters, it is found that two-final consonant cluster is the prevailing one, the
frequency of occurrence is (24) which makes up the percentage (96), in
return three-final consonant cluster takes number (1) which represents the
percentage (4) represented in the syntactic term „adjunct‟ which takes the
phonotactic pattern (pre-final+final+post-final). Notice that table (3.3) lacks
any sort of four- final consonant clusters,but notice also that „adjunct‟ is a
potential instance of four-final consonant cluster under certain morphological
condition, i.e., pluralization as in „adjuncts‟/ 'ædЗŋkts /. Concerning the
formulas of two-final consonant clusters, the number of terms that follow the
formula (pre-final+final) is (18) which constitutes the percentage (75). As
for the formula (final+post final) the number is (6) which makes up the
percentage (25).

Table (3.3) The Phonotactic Formulas and Types of

Final Consonant Clusters
 128

Term Pre-final Final Post-final (1) Post-final(2) Type of the

cluster
Phonological Terms
lax k s _ _ SF
length _ ŋ  _ NC
margins n z _ _ NC
phonotactics k s _ _ SF
segment n t _ _ NC
Morphological Terms
allomorphs _ s f _ FF
morphemes _ m z _ NC
prefix k s _ _ SF
suffix k s _ _ SF
Syntactic Terms
adjunct n k t _ NSS
bound n d _ _ NC
command n d _ _ NC
complement n t _ _ NC
constituent n t _ _ NC
sentence n s _ _ NC
subject k t _ _ SS
syntax k s _ _ SF
Semantics Terms
concept p t _ _ SS
field l d _ _ /l/+consonant
idioms _ m z _ NC
reference n s _ _ NC
semantics k s _ _ SF
sense n s _ _ NC
 129

synonyms _ m z _ NC
words _ d z _ SF

By examining two-final consonant clusters, the frequency of

occurrence of consonant clusters of the type (NC) is (13) out of (24), the
percentage is (54.166), the type SF is (7), (29.166), the type SS (2),
(8.333) and the type FF and (/l/+consonant) is (1) for each type which
comprises the percentage (4.166) for each one. Consider table (3.4).

Table (3.4) Numbers and Percentages of Final-Two

Consonant Clusters
Type of the Cluster Number Percentage
NC 13 54.166%
SF 7 29.166%
SS 2 8.333%
FF 1 4.166%
/l/ +consonant 1 4.166%
Total 24 99.997%

3.4 Conclusions
From the phonotactic analysis of initial and final consonant clusters, the
following conclusions are arrived at and summed up as follows:

3.4.1 Theoretical Conclusions

 131

1- Consonant cluster is a linguistic phenomenon that refers to combinability

of phonemes of the same class to co-occur with each other in the phonetic or
phonological context.
2- The basic unit of the analysis is a matter of debates among phoneticians
and phonologists, but the syllable is proved to be an appropriate unit for a
consonant cluster analysis, since other units like morphemes and words do
not give that comprehensive explanatory description for all the emerging
phenomena in this important part of phonotactics;
3- Phonemes vary enormously with respect to the freedom and potentiality
with which they can be combined with other phonemes, for instance, the
voiceless fricative /s/ can occur with almost a dozen of other phonemes to
form (s) cluster. On the contrary, the affricates /t/ and /d3 / enter into a
highly restricted set of combinability in initial positions where they cannot
combine with any phoneme to form a cluster in the onset position.
4- The existence of phonemes in any position in the onset (pre-initial, initial
or post-initial) is determined according to phonological criteria. For instance,
what determines the pre-initial position in two- initial consonant clusters is
the existence of the /s/ phoneme, in contrast, what determines the initial and
post-initial position is the lack of /s/ phoneme. As for three-initial consonant
clusters, they always have the phonotactic formula (pre-initial+initial+post-
initial).
5- In connection with the phonotactic types and patterns, final consonant
clusters and their formulas are determined according to phonological and
morphological considerations. Two final consonant clusters can be divided
into two types: two-consonant clusters which lack any suffix follow the
formula: pre-final+final; and those that have one suffix (usually,(-d), (-s) or (-
th)) follow the following formula: final+post-final.
6- As for three-final consonant clusters the general formulas are:
i- pre-final+final+post-final
ii- pre-final(1)+pre-final(2)+final
 131

iii- final+post-final(1)+post-final(2)
If a word takes only one suffix it will belong to the first formula, if it takes
two suffixes it will belong to the second formula.
7-Concerning four final-consonant clusters, they can appear in two formulas:
i- pre-final+final+post-final(1)+post-final(2)
ii- final+post-final(1)+post-final(2)+post-final(3)
iii- pre-final(1)+pre-final(2)+final+post-final
If a word takes two suffixes it will belong to the first formula. If it takes three
suffixes it will belong to the second formula.

8- Linguistic terms are linguistic units, heavy in information content since

they are used by linguists in a field to name the concepts or phenomena
which appear in that particular field of study. As far as linguistics is
concerned, terms are classified in terms of the levels, sub-levels, branches or
sub-branches that they belong to in linguistics, for instance, phonological
terms, morphological terms, syntactic terms, semantic terms, etc.

9- On the syntactic level, terms appear mostly as simple nouns, like „clause‟,
„cluster‟, „stress‟, etc; compound forms such as „class-maintaining‟ or „noun
phrases‟ with a prepositional phrase attachment or without, like „theories of
the syllable‟ or „syllable theories‟. Besides, adjectives appear very rarely as
terms in linguistics such as „lax‟. Whereas verbs or prepositional phrases do
not appear as terms in linguistics.
10- Semantically speaking, terms in linguistics designate particular concepts
or particular conceptual relationships which are often studied under the
heading „concept analysis‟.

11- From a qualitative viewpoint, English terms, that are used in the study of
linguistics, have the following features:
 132

i- Many linguistic terms are taken from Latin or Greek or sometimes appear
as hybrids (words composed of bases from different languages), for instance,
„phonotactics‟, „morphology‟, „syntax‟, „phonemes‟, „allomorphs‟, etc.
ii-Most linguistic terms do not have general usage, furthermore, their
meanings are closely related to a particular specialised field.

iii-The problems of polysemy and synonymy are found among English

linguistic terms. Good linguistic examples that best illustrate these
terminological phenomena are represented in the terms 'phonotactics' and
(consonant cluster or sound sequence), respectively. 'Phonotactics' is a term
used to designate different senses such as sound sequencing, constraints
imposed on sound sequencing or clustering and distribution of sounds.
Whereas the terms 'consonants cluster' and 'sounds sequence' are used
interchangeably to refer to the same phenomenon, i.e., consecutive sounds of
the same class.
12- From a quantitative viewpoint, English linguistic terms occur frequently
in a specific subject and they occur more frequently in specified disciplines
than in general usage. Besides, if the terms appear for the first time in the
text, they are always written in bold face or between two inverted commas.

3.4.2 Practical Conclusions

The follwing practical conclusions are derived from the analysis:
1- The characteristics of English consonant clusters are complex and variant;
they are complex for the following reasons:

i- There is a wide range of consonant clusters on both margins of the syllable

which extend up to three consonants on the left side of the nucleus and up to
four on the right side of it, with a high level of restrictions on both sides;
 133

ii- Restrictions which are imposed on consonant clusters in the coda position
are more complex and variant than those imposed in the onset position;
iii- There are certain consonant clusters that have a high level of frequency of
occurrence such as (consonant+/l/) initially and (consonant+nasal) (NC)
finally, othes with a low level such as (consonant+/w/) initially, still others in
between such as (consonant+/r/) initially and (two obstruents SF) finally.

2- Nearly most linguistic terms are considered syntactically simple „nouns‟

consequently, consonant clusters at the end can be increased as a result of
many morphological processes such as pluralization, furthermore, the types
of patterns of consonant clusters are also increased.

3- The prevailing sorts of consonant clusters are the two-consonant clusters

which represent the highest percentage of both types initially and finally and
the two-final consonant clusters occur more frequently than two-initial
consonant clusters.

4- The dominant formula of two- initial consonant cluster is (initial+post-

initial) whereas the dominant formula of two-final consonant cluster is (pre-
final+final) though the formula (final+post-final) is utilised many times.
Besides, the number of potential terms and the number of the frequency of
occurrence of this formula can be increased many times as a result of adding
the plural suffix (-(e)s).

5- Initial- consonant clusters that have the formula (initial+post-initial)

always conform to the SSP and SDP. In contrast, initial consonant clusters
having the formula (pre-initial+initial), (where the pre-initial position is
always occupied by /s/) violate the above mentioned principles. However,
final-consonant clusters show more instances of violation of the SSP and
SDP.
 134

6- As far as verifying the hypotheses (stated in this study) is concerned, the

following points are worth mentioning:

i- The first hypothesis is confirmed, i.e., the great majority of the permissible
combinations are of two-consonant clusters in the data under analysis.
ii- The second one is also validated, i.e., most of the permissible consonant
sequences occur finally.
iii- The third hypothesis has two postulations: both postulations
are confirmed, i.e., the dominant formula of a cluster in initial
position is represented by the following pattern: (initial+ post-
initial) and the prevailing formula in final positions is: (pre-
final+final).

Suggestions for Further Researches

1- A study is needed on phonotactics of English compound linguistic terms

concerning medial-consonant clusters.

2- A study can be conducted on the evaluation of the concept of sonority and
its applications in English phonotactics.
3- A study is, perhaps, needed on the conceptual analysis of particular sets of
terms on one of the following: phonological, morphological, syntactic or
semantic English terms.
 135

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- Wardhaugh, R. (1977). Introduction to Linguistics. New York:

McGraw- Hill Books Company.

- Wells, J. and Colson, G. (1981). Practical Phonetics. London: Pitman

Books LTD.

- Wuster, E. (1985). The General Theory of Terminology. Vienna:

Infoterm.

- Yule, G. (1996). The Study of Language: An Introduction.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

APPENDIX

Letters from Famous Profs.:

COLEMAN,
COXHEAD,
 147

LADEFOGED&
ROACH

Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 18:10:01 +0100

From: "John Coleman" <john.coleman@phonetics.oxford.ac.uk>

To: "Majda Faris" <iraqia90@yahoo.com>

Subject: Re: consultation

Dear Majda,
I have no intrinsic preference. It depends on the facts of the language.
As far as English is concerned syllables , words, morphemes are all relevant
 148

in different ways. It depends on the particular, specific research questions you

are asking.
The term:
Transcription:
Number of syllable(s):
Syllable division:
Syllable Structure:
Position of the cluster:
Number of the consonant cluster:
Type of the cluster:
The phonotactic formula:
Any of those variables could be relevant. It depends on the particular,
specific research questions you are asking.

Dr John Coleman
Director, Oxford University Phonetics Laboratory
41 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2JD, UK
http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/

Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 16:27:01 +0000

To: "Majda Faris" <iraqia90@yahoo.com>

From: "Peter Coxhead" <p.coxhead@cs.bham.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: consultation

Dear Majda,
 149

I have never found such books that give introductory information about
linguistic terminology; I too would be very interested if you ever find one! A
problem is that different linguists use different terminology, partly because of
different theoretical perspectives, but partly because of habits in different
sub-fields of linguistics.

Regards,
Peter

------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Peter Coxhead Senior Lecturer Academic Manager
E-mail:
http://de.f311.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=p.coxhead@cs.bham.ac.uk
&YY=86146&order=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b
Location: Room UG34, Computer Science Building
Phone: Extension 44773, External 0121-41-44773
Timetable: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~pxc/timetable.html

From: "peter ladefoged" <p.j.roach@ntlworld.com>

To: "Majda Faris" <iraqia90@yahoo.com>

CC: "self" <ladefoged999@yahoo.com>

Subject: Re: question

Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 03:14:57 -0700

Dear Majda,

Come and talk any time. Concerning the factors of your analysis, all of
them sound good to me:
 151

The term: cluster

Transcription:
Number of syllable(s):
Syllable division:
Syllable Structure:
Position of the cluster:
Number of the consonant cluster:
Type of the cluster:
The phonotactic formula:

Prof. Peter Ladefoged, University of California,

Linguistics Department.

-------------------------------------------------------
From: "P.J.Roach" <p.j.roach@ntlworld.com>

To: "Majda Faris" <iraqia90@yahoo.com>

CC: "self" <p.j.roach@ntlworld.com>

Subject: Re: my project

Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2005 16:31:15 -0000

Dear Majda,

If you think of words like 'phoneme', or 'adjective', or 'passive', and if

you find some special characteristic it will be very interesting. Anyway, if
 151

you carry out this study, you will at least discover some useful data about the
composition of one particular set of English words.
The way I analyse consonant cluster in initial and final position is based
on a very widely used treatment. But, the fact is that there seems to be some
structure to the consonants combine in syllables.
The assignment of consonants to particular positions is, as far as I‟m
concerned, a matter of phonology. Of course, considerations of morphology
are relevant.

Good luck, Peter Roach

professor, Roach, University of Reading.