Consonant Adjacency Restrictions at the Derivation Boundary in Farsi

Abstract

The purpose of the present research is to study consonant adjacency restrictions at the derivation boundary in Persian words. This research shows that to what extent consonant adjacency can be affected by place of articulation, manner of articulation and voice feature. In this research 1362 derivative words with consonant sequence are extracted from Moshiri dictionary (1388). The frequency of sequences and the frequency of each consonant in each of the places in sequence is presented. The results show that consonants are appeared in consonant sequences with a significant difference in frequency. Fricative- nonfricative sequences have the most frequency and nasal-nasal sequences have the least frequency. Comparing the frequency of consonants in first and second placement in sequence shows that all 23 consonants in Persian can appear at the first place in sequence in derivation boundary but only 12 consonants can appear at the second placement. Of the 198 types of sequences, 54% are the same in the respect of voice feature, while 46% are different in that respect. So the tendency towards voice homogeneity feature is slightly greater than heterogeneity in voice. Voicing status does not show a significant change according to the first and second placement of the sequence.

Keywords

• persian language
• phonological constraints
• derivation boundary
• consonant sequence
• homogeneity in voice feature