Onset Maximalism

Of course, this rule (and similarly the earlier reformulation of aspiration in syllable terms) will only work appropriately if we are drawing the boundaries between syllables, and therefore determining what consonants are in the coda of an earlier syllable, and which in the onset of a later one, in the right way.

We have already noted that the Sonority Sequencing Generalization provides one guide to drawing syllable boundaries; leaving aside the exceptional case of /s/ in clusters, we find that legal syllables exhibit a sonority profile which ascends from the left-hand margin of the onset, up to a sonority peak in the nucleus, and subsequently descends to the right-hand margin of the coda, as shown in (4) above. However, there is another, equally important principle governing syllable division, namely Onset Maximalism (also known as Initial Maximalism), which is set out in (8).

(8) Onset Maximalism

Where there is a choice, always assign as many consonants as possible to the onset, and as few as possible to the coda. However, remember that every word must also consist of a sequence of well-formed syllables.

Onset Maximalism tells us that, in a word like leader, the medial /d/ must belong to the second syllable, where it can be located in the onset, rather than the first, where it would have to be assigned to the less favoured coda. This is a permissible analysis, because both [li:] and [də(ɹ)] are well-formed syllables of English: think of lea, or Lee, and the first syllable of dirty, or Derwent. The same goes for a word like oyster, where both parts of the medial /st/ cluster belong to the onset of the second syllable, while the initial diphthong forms a syllable on its own. There are many monosyllabic words with initial /st/, like stop, start, stitch, stoop; and if /st/ make a well-formed onset word-initially, then they can combine to make a well-formed onset word-medially, too.

We can use the same sort of argument to account for the alternation between dark  in hill, but clear [l] in hilly. Since hill has only a single syllable, and moreover has a vowel occupying the nuclear slot, the /l/ must necessarily be in the coda, and is therefore dark. However, in hilly, there are two syllables, and Onset Maximalism means /l/ must be in the onset of the second, where it automatically surfaces as clear. This kind of alternation, where the form that surfaces depends on its position in the syllable, is quite common in English and other languages. For instance, in non-rhotic accents of English, /r/ has two realizations, namely [ɹ] in onsets, and zero in codas: it surfaces in red, bread, very, but not in car, park. Again, as with the alternation between clear and dark variants of /l/, we find that the addition of suffixes can change the situation: so for instance, star has no final consonant for non-rhotic speakers, but there is a medial [ɹ] in starry, where the /r/ constitutes the onset of the second syllable. It also follows that syllable boundaries will not always coincide with morpheme boundaries, or boundaries between meaningful units: in starry, the two morphemes are star, the stem, and -y, the suffix, but the syllables are divided as sta.rry (note that a dot signals a syllable bound-ary).Similar alternations arise across word boundaries in connected speech: thus, although car has no final [ɹ], and the same is true of car keys, where the second word begins with a consonant, in car engine the second word begins with a vowel, and the /r/ can be allocated to the onset of that syllable, where it duly surfaces as [ɹ]. As far as native speakers’ knowledge goes, there are two ways of analyzing this. We could assume that speakers store car mentally as /kɑr/, and delete the /r/ before a consonant or pause. Alternatively, the entry in the mental lexicon or dictionary might be /kɑ/, with [ɹ] being inserted before vowels. Choices of this kind, and their implications, are vitally important for phonologists.

However, in a word like falter, we cannot straightforwardly assign the medial /lt/ to the second syllable. The Sonority Sequencing Generalization would allow the syllable boundary to follow /lt/ (compare fault, a well-formed monosyllabic word), but Onset Maximalism forces the /t/ at least into the onset of the next syllable. The syllable boundary cannot, however, precede the /l/ because /lt/ is not a possible word-initial cluster in English, and it consequently cannot be a word-internal, syllable-initial cluster either. On the other hand, in bottle our immediate reaction might be to proposed bo.ttle, which fits both the Sonority Sequencing Generalization and Onset Maximalism. However, we then face a problem with the first syllable, which would on this analysis consist only of /bɒ/; and, a single short vowel cannot make up the rhyme of a stressed syllable. The first syllable clearly needs a coda; but bott.le is not quite right either, since native speakers, asked to check syllable boundaries by saying each syllable in the word twice, typically say bot-bot-tle-tle. The same is true of other words with the same problematic structure, like syllable in fact, which comes out as syl-syl-la-la-ble-ble; it may not be coincidental that these are written with double medial consonants. The usual solution here is to analyze the /t/ of bottle as ambisyllabic: that is, as belonging simultaneously in both the coda of the first syllable, and the onset of the second. This does not conflict with either the Sonority Sequencing Generalization or Onset Maximalism, but also accords with native speakers’ intuitions and the stress patterns of English.