Exploring (mor)phono-tactics
A comparative study of consonant clusters in Germanic and Slavic languages
In my PhD project I analyzed phonotactic patterns in German, English, Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian, revealing fundamental differences in consonant cluster positional distribution between Germanic and Slavic languages. Through corpus analysis the research demonstrates how morphological and phonological development shaped cluster preferences regardless their type/token frequency.
Methodological Framework
- Corpus-based analysis using written corpora
- Application of Net Auditory Distance (NAD) principle
- Beats-and-Binding phonological model for clusters evaluation
- Comparative typological approach
Key Findings
Cross-Linguistic Distribution
- Germanic languages (German/English) show 63% more final-position clusters
- Slavic languages (Polish/Ukrainian/Russian) exhibit 41% more initial-position clusters
- No significant correlation between cluster frequency and phonological preference
Typological Differences
- Germanic final clusters originate mainly from morphological concatenation
- Slavic initial clusters result mainly from vowel reduction processes
- Morphonotactic clusters show higher markedness in Slavic languages
Research Contributions
- First systematic comparison of Germanic and Slavic cluster positions
- Quantitative verification of NAD predictions
- Typological model explaining positional preferences
- Corpus-based methodology for phonological analysis
Conclusion
This study establishes that the contrasting cluster distributions in Germanic and Slavic languages result from different developmental pathways in morphological complexity and phonological systems. The findings challenge traditional markedness assumptions while providing a framework for predicting language-specific phonotactic constraints. The research demonstrates the value of corpus-based methods in phonological analysis, offering new directions for comparative linguistics and language typology studies.