Onset clusters in English and Serbian

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide a comparison of onset clusters in English and Serbian within the theoretical framework that employs the concept of sonority. According to the Sonority Sequencing Principle (Kiparsky, 1979; Selkirk, 1984; Clements, 1990), consonant sequences can be divided into core clusters, sonority reversals and sonority plateaus. In order to divide onset clusters into these three groups, we used the principles referring to possible consonant clusters provided in Roach (2009) and the classification of consonant clusters in Petrović & Gudurić (2010). The classification shows that the majority of sequences in English and Serbian represent core clusters. All three types of clusters are more numerous in Serbian. Dispersion of demisyllables in the two * aleksandar.zivanovic@ff.uns.ac.rs  The paper is based on the author‟s master‟s thesis. The research was partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia within the project Development of Dialogue Systems for Serbian and Other South Slavic Languages (TR32035). A L E K S A N D A R M . Ž I V A N O V I Ć