Syllable structure assignment in Polish

Abstract

This study deals with syllable structure in Polish. The central theme is the question of when and how syllabification rules apply in the lexical phonology of Polish. In § i we lay the ground for our subsequent discussion by giving the basic syllable patterns of Polish. We also propose here a first version of the syllabification algorithm for Polish. In §2 we show that syllabification applies cyclically, because certain cyciic phonological rules make crucial use of information about the prosodic structure of their potential inputs. § 3 then shows that the syllabification algorithm has to apply both before and after the application of cyclic phonological rules on one cycle, and that syllabification is therefore a continuous process. In § we argue that the syllabification algorithm proposed in § i must be modified to enable us to predict whether a high [-consonantal] segment will surface as a vowel or as a glide. Since the distinction between vowels and glides is crucial for the application of certain cyclic phonological rules of Polish, this again shows that syllabification has to apply cyclically. § defends the hypothesis that resyllabification is restricted to Coda Erasure (and the subsequent syllabification of the desyllabified consonants). Again, the (un)predictability of the vowel/glide distinction plays a crucial role here. We summarise our conclusions in §6