Universal #1968

Legacy number: 1968

 Number  1962
 Original  Within lexical morphemes of the shape C1VC2V, the sonority of C1 tends to be less than that of C2, with C1 tending to be an obstruent and C2 a sonorant.
 Standardized  Within lexical morphemes of the shape C1VC2V, the sonority of C1 tends to be less than that of C2, with C1 tending to be an obstruent and C2 a sonorant.
 Keywords  phonotactics, sonority, word
 Domain  phonology
 Type  unconditional
 Status  achronic
 Quality  statistical
 Basis  Russian, Czech (Slavic, IE), Tajik (Iranian, IE), Turkish, Mongolian, Nanay (Altaic), Japanese (isolate?), Vietnamese (Austroasiatic), Indonesian, Javanese, Tagalog (Austronesian)
 Source  Zubkova 1990

← Back to Universals Archive

Discussion
Notes
See discussion in Butskhrikidze 2002: 64-68, who sees this as an instantiation of Sonority Sequencing even across a vowel. Problematic are prefixal lgs like Tagalog, where C1 is typically a sonorant.
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
See discussion in Butskhrikidze 2002: 64-68, who sees this as an instantiation of Sonority Sequencing even across a vowel. Problematic are prefixal lgs like Tagalog, where C1 is typically a sonorant.