Branching structure within the syllable

Abstract

Arguments about constituency in syntax can often be settled by such methods as testing whether conjoining is possible, or whether a particular string can be moved as a single constituent by a transformational rule. In view of the isomorphism which has been noted between syntactic structures and phonological structures (cf. Clements & Keyser, 1983:25–26; the notion of ‘structural analogy’ in Anderson & Durand, 1986:3; and most notably the isomorphism pointed out between Sentence and Syllable by Kurylowicz, 1949), one might wonder whether such means are available for settling analogous arguments in phonology. It appears that they are not: in this area conjoining does not occur, while movement rules are either not recognized at all, or restricted to those accounting for processes of metathesis, which would normally be taken to be local transformations operating on single segments (cf. Vincent, 1986:318, fn. 3). What types of arguments, then, ARE available for settling questions of phonological constituency? This article attempts to explore some aspects of this question.