Positional syllable maximality: syllabification in hejazi

Abstract

This paper examines the process of evaluating syllabic parsing in Hejazi. The constraint-based analysis presents the universally unmarked CV as the syllable template required to optimise actual syllabification. Instances of final reduction, final vowel shortening and final consonant extrasyllabicity, support the proposed analysis, offering justification for the lack of final mono-syllable moraic trochees, and hence lack of word final head syllable and stress. The account decomposes the requirement on maximum syllabic moraicity. The constraint SYL-MAXIMALITY(μ) confines moraic content to the minimum while SYL-MAXIMALITY(μμ) maximally allows the parsing of bi-moraic syllables. Ranked undominated, SYL-MAXIMALITY(μμ) allows parsing (nonfinal) heavy syllables and restricts superheavies to the right periphery of the prosodic word. SYL-MAXIMALITY(μ), that preserves the hypothetically maximum and minimum syllable throughout the syllabification domain, is ranked lower to guarantee unmarked syllabification elsewhere, i.e. whenever allowed by higher constraints on faithfulness and markedness formalised to uphold other principles of prosodification, in non-final positions.