22. Phonotactics IV: Practice Exercises
Note: Make sure that you have the Lucida Sans Unicode font installed in your computer so that the IPA
symbols will display correctly.
Use the AnalogX rhyming dictionary "Rhyme", the Scrabble word pattern matching
functions, the puzzle solving tools, or whatever resources you have at your disposal to
answer the following questions.
Practice exercises:
1. From Ladefoged, p. 86: Try to find words with the vowels /Ǥ//ʊ//aʊ//ǤǺ/
which
are closed (forming part of the same syllable) with the following consonants:
/p/ /b/ /m/ /f/ /t/ /n/ /l/ /s/ /z/ /k/ /g/
2. How many words can you find in English that begin with the clusters /sf/ and /sv/?
3. What other initial clusters can you think of that are used in very few words in English?
4. What are some especially common initial and final consonant clusters in English?
(Get some help here. More information on this page on phonaesthemes (also spelled phonesthemes). A phonaestheme is
a word with a phonetic likeness to other words of similar meaning. Crush, crash, clash, bash, mash, smash, and smoosh
are phonaesthemes of each other. Phonaesthemes may be fragments of very old root words and thus carry meaning, albeit
rather vague meaning. The notion of phonaesthemes can perhaps partly account for some of the consonant clusters found
in English.)
5. How many words end in -gry?
(One answer here.)
6. What is the maximum number of phonemes than can be used to form a consonant
cluster at the beginning of an English syllable? What must the first phoneme of a
maximally long initial consonant cluster be? Which phonemes, in which position, can
follow it? Give example words.
7. What is the maximum number of phonemes than can be used to form a consonant
cluster at the end of an English syllable? What must the final phoneme a maximally long
final consonant cluster be? Which phonemes, in which position, can follow it? Give
example words each.
8. After which phonemes can /l/
occur within an initial consonant cluster? Give example
words.
9. Which kinds of nasal + stop, fricative or affricate clusters can occur at the end of an
English syllable? Which are homorganic? Based on the number of matches you find for
each, which type seem more common in English, homorganic or non-
homorganic nasal +
stop, fricative, or affricate clusters?
10. Nasal + stop clusters seem never to have been used in English; and stop + nasal
clusters are generally not allowed in modern English (except in foreign loans like
Knesset
, the Israeli parliament), but they were allowed in an earlier period. Use clues
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