Constraints on onsets and codas of words and phrases

For any phonotactic restriction on syllable onsets and codas, it can be shown that parallel restrictions are attested at edges of each higher prosodic domain. Onsets can be required at the beginnings of syllables, words, or utterances; codas can be banned at the ends of any of these constituents; and so on. This paper argues that these restrictions follow from constraint schemata: any markedness constraint on syllable onsets or codas (MOns or MCoda) is part of a family of constraints (MOns(Onset/PCat) or MCoda(Coda/PCat)) imposing parallel restrictions on initial onsets or final codas of each prosodic domain. These prosodic domain-edge markedness constraints can induce epenthesis, deletion, or other segmental changes at domain edges; they can also shape words' prosodic structures. 1. Phonotactic restrictions on prosodic domain edges The set of segments occurring in word-initial onsets or word-final codas is often different from those occurring in medial onsets and codas. Some languages allow more segments and structures in intial onsets or final codas than in word-internal ones. Word-initial syllables in Axininca Campa may either have onsets or be onsetless, but onsets are required in all non-initial syllables (McCarthy and Prince, 1993b, Payne, 1981). Similarly in Kamaiurá, codas are permitted only in word-final syllables (Everett and Seki, 1985, McCarthy and Prince, 1986/1996). The opposite pattern, where a word-edge inventory is a subset of the medial inventory, is also attested. Initial syllables in Madi must have onsets while medial syllables may have onsets or be onsetless (Tucker, 1967); in Chamicuro, codas are banned in word-final syllables but may occur nonfinally (Parker, 2001: 365-6). Instances of the first sort of restrictions – superset inventories at word edges – are often discussed in the literature; analyses of these patterns typically involve either extraprosodicity or 1 Thanks to Michelle Barron, Michael Becker, Shigeto Kawahara, John Kingston, John McCarthy, Joe Pater, Mallory Schleif, Lisa Selkirk, Matt Wolf, audiences at HUMDRUM 2006 and LSA 2007, and the UMass Phonology Group for many helpful suggestions and discussion.