Universal #629

Legacy number: 629

 Number  626
 Original  Sonority Hierarchy: liquids > glides > nasals > fricatives > stops
 Standardized  Sonority Hierarchy: vowels > liquids > glides > nasals > fricatives > stops
 Keywords  sonority hierarchy
 Domain  phonology
 Type  implicational hierarchy
 Status  achronic
 Quality  statistical
 Basis  languages in Hankamer & Aissen 1974
 Source  Hankamer & Aissen 1974: 138

← Back to Universals Archive

Discussion
Notes
*Hankamer and Aissen 1974: 138 note: The scale is universal but every language places its segment types along the hierarchy at points determined by the language-particular features of articulation. There is a language-particular, rather than universal determination of natural classes in the liquid-glide region of the sonority scale.Extensively discussed ever since. The main purpose of the sonority hierarchy is to define permissible/preferred syllable shapes, with sonority steadily rising from onset to peak and steadily falling from peak to coda.
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
*Hankamer and Aissen 1974: 138 note:
The scale is universal but every language places its segment types along the hierarchy at points determined by the language-particular features of articulation. There is a language-particular, rather than universal determination of natural classes in the liquid-glide region of the sonority scale.

Extensively discussed ever since.

The main purpose of the sonority hierarchy is to define permissible/preferred syllable shapes, with sonority steadily rising from onset to peak and steadily falling from peak to coda.