چکیده:
This study presents an overview of the different strategies that Persian learners of English employ to deal with initial clusters. While vowel epenthesis appears to be the most widespread repair strategy to conform such clusters to Persian phonotactics, the location of the epenthetic vowel varies. In this paper, we investigate two approaches that seek to explain the epenthetic site. The first of these, based on the Sonority Sequencing Principle, does not offer a plausible account, in particular with respect to the repair of s + sonorant clusters. The second approach, based on Fleischhacker (2001, 2005), argues that the epenthetic site is based on maximal perceptual similarity between input and output. An experiment with Persian listeners is reported which confirms the crucial role of perceptual similarity. Finally, we cast this approach into an Optimality Theory framework, which will be seen to make the right predictions for words with triconsonantal clusters.
خلاصه ماشینی:
The following sonority scale is fairly uncontroversial: (4) Sonority scale Obstruents – Nasals – Liquids – Glides – Vowels Least sonorous …………………Most sonorous Concerning the type of sonorant segments, Selkirk (1982) and Steriade (1982) assigned a sonority value to each sound segment allowing us to determine the sonority distance between consonants in clusters.
Singh (1985: 273) observes that generally "an unacceptable word-initial consonant cluster is broken up by the insertion of a vowel before the more sonorous segment".
(6) Anaptyxis in TR clusters English target Realization black [belæk] class [kelAs] drawer [derAver] plaster [pelAster] train [teræn] Singh’s generalization, that "an unacceptable word-initial consonant cluster is broken up by the insertion of a vowel before the more sonorous segment" predicts that /s/ plus stop clusters should be resolved by prothesis.
The question is whether the idea of similarity between input and output can also resolve the location of epenthesis in s+sonorant clusters in Persian.
In a rule-based framework, this can be expressed as follows: (9) Epenthesis rule (prothesis) Ø Z [e] / SC In OT, vowel epenthesis corresponds to a violation of the constraint DEP-IO, which militates against inserting a vowel, which makes inputs different from outputs.
In other words, the latter constraint, penalizing epenthesis into a stop + sonorant cluster, is most easily violated.
The production strategy by Persian speakers can be captured by an Optimality Theory grammar of conflicting constraints, which makes the correct predictions for the realization of the different types of clusters.