Questions tagged [consonant-clusters]
The consonant-clusters tag has no usage guidance.
2
votes
2answers
218 views
Why are the word-initial consonant clusters /tl/ and /dl/ absent in English?
The clusters /pr/, /br/, /kr/, /gr/, /tr/, /dr/, /pl/, /bl/, /kl/, /gl/ are all pretty common. But why are /tl/ and /dl/ missing? Is there any linguistic or historical explanation?
9
votes
1answer
178 views
Are /tl/ and /dl/ rare onsets worldwide?
Onsets of stop+liquid are very common, but it seems like /tl/ and /dl/ are much rarer than other stop+liquid onsets, like /gl/ or /pr/.
Are /tl/ and /dl/ especially rare compared to other stop+liquid ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
Are syllable initial consonant clusters pronounced in Ancient Greek?
A number of loan words and New Latin words derived from Ancient Greek have word initial clusters of a plosive+nasal or dissimilar phonemes like /ps/ or /pt/. I cannot avoid aspirating or inserting a ...
2
votes
0answers
238 views
Confusion matrix for consonant clusters in English?
I was wondering if anybody knew of a confusion matrix for consonant clusters in the English language. I've seen CV, VC, and CVC phoneme/syllable confusion matrices, but never any with any sort of ...
0
votes
1answer
206 views
Do languages with long clusters have minimal vowel or consonant inventories?
I assume, considering the Onset principle, that there are not many languages that have a structure with VV or VVV but are there languages that have a CV.VV structure? If there is, I would assume that ...
3
votes
4answers
684 views
Are there languages with consonant clusters that include consonants that never occur alone?
In the languages I know more about I can't think of any cases of consonant phoneme clusters that are not made up entirely of consonant phonemes which also occur on their own in the language.
But I'm ...
2
votes
1answer
170 views
Lao orthography: ວ as part of consonant cluster or part of diphtong and placement of tone marks
Lao is a little underdocumented compared to other languages, both in terms of actual linguistics and in terms of prescriptive norms.
There is a semivowel letter, ວ, which has a few roles:
Consonant /...
