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Obligatory Contour Principle in English CVC Syllables

This work was done in collaboration with Arto Anttila, with contribution from Matthew Adams, Jason Grafmiller, Scott Grimm, and Yuan Zhao

In this project we were interested in finding out whether the gradient prohibition against nearby consonants that share place of articulation (OCP-place) was active in all English CVC syllables. Using CELEX and CMU electronic dictionaries we showed that syllables like 'pop' or 'gok' , where first and last consonants had the same place features, were indeed under-represented in English lexicon. In addition, we found indications that OCP-place in English may interact with stress. In particular, the co-occurrence of coronal consonants was relatively more tolerated in unstressed than in stressed syllables. 

Related Papers and Presentations

Dmitrieva, O. (2008) The gradient phonotactics of English CVC syllables. Ms., Stanford University.[pdf]

Dmitrieva, O., Anttila, A. (2008) The gradient phonotactics of English CVC syllables. Laboratory Phonology 11, Wellington, New Zealand. [poster]

Dmitrieva, O., Adams, M.,  Grafmiller, J., Grimm, S., Zhao, Y., Anttila, A. (2008) Gradient OCP and harmonic alignment in English phonotactics. The 82nd Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Chicago.