publications

2023

1. IJL

   (Mor)phonotactics of Ukrainian: The Study of Word-Initial Consonant Clusters

   A. Kononenko-Szoszkiewicz

   Italian Journal of Linguistics, 2023

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   The present paper aims to provide the first analysis of Ukrainian phonotactics and morphonotactics, compare them qualitatively and quantitatively, and explain the difference between these two perspectives. Further, the paper explores the morphological complexity of consonant clusters in the Ukrainian language. The research is limited to consonant clusters in word-initial position compared to earlier studies in other Slavic languages, namely Russian and Polish. With respect to markedness, two hypotheses were tested, suggesting that morphonotactic clusters are expected to be less preferred than phonotactic, and that cluster preferability is directly proportional to frequency. Additionally, there have been discussed predictions of clusters’ preferability derived from the Net Auditory Distance principle.

2021

1. AAS

   German Phonotactic vs. Morphonotactic Obstruent Clusters: A Corpus Linguistic Analysis

   W. U. Dressler ,  and  A. Kononenko-Szoszkiewicz

   In Experimental, Acquisitional and Corpus Linguistic Approaches to the Study of Morphonotactic , 2021

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   German phonotactic vs. morphonotactic obstruent clusters: a corpus linguistic analysis’ by Wolfgang U. Dressler and Alona Kononenko-Szoszkiewicz presents a corpusbased study of the obstruent clusters in German. In particular, the paper investigates the distribution, in terms of type and token frequency, of triple consonant clusters (excluding glides) containing two obstruents. The study is framed within the NAD (Net Auditory Distance) model, a net reaction of the difference between adjacent segments in terms of the manner and place of articulation (Dziubalska-Kolaczyk 2002). One main result discussed by the authors is that, according to NAD predictions, (at least triple) morphonotactic clusters are preferred over phonotactic clusters for German word-¿nal position, which supports the Strong Morphonotactic Hypothesis (SMH, as described above). This must be compared with psycholinguistic evidence, as reported in the chapter by SommerLolei et al. (below). he typological characterization of the German language with regard to the word-¿nal and word-initial obstruent clusters, in contrast to Slavic and other Indo-European languages, is also discussed at the end of the paper.

2019

1. FLiH

   Morphological Richness, Transparency, and the Evolution of Morphonotactic Patterns

   W. U. Dressler ,  A. Kononenko ,  S. Sommer-Lolei , and 3 more authors

   Folia Linguistica Historica, Folia Linguistica, 2019

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   Morphonotactics determines phonological conditions on sound sequences produced by morphological operations both with morphemes and across boundaries. This paper examines the historical emergence and the development of morphonotactic consonant clusters in Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, Romance and other languages. It examines the role of the following morphological preference parameters: (i) morphotactic transparency/opacity, (ii) morphosemantic transparency/opacity, (iii) morphological richness. We identify several diachronic processes involved in cluster emergence, production and change: vowel loss, Indo-European ablaut (and comparable Arabic processes), affixation, compounding, metathesis, final and consonant epenthesis. Additionally, we discuss predictions derived from the Net Auditory Distance principle, psycholinguistic evidence and language acquisition. We show that the majority of morphonotactic clusters arise, phonologically, from vowel loss, and morphologically from concatenation.

2. Routledge

   Main Differences Between German and Russian (Mor)phonotactics

   W. U. Dressler ,  and  A. Kononenko-Szoszkiewicz

   In Approaches to the Study of Sound Structure and Speech: Interdisciplinary Work in Honour of Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk , 2019

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   Both German and Russian can be characterized as rather consonantal languages with respect to the relative amount of their consonantal inventory, variety and complexity of consonant clusters. The present study compares typological differences between German and Russian morphonotactic and phonotactic triple consonant clusters in both word-initial and word-final positions, i.e. in the periphery of the morphological word. For typological purposes, published evidence from English, Polish, and Slovak is compared in honor of the pioneering work in the area by Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kolaczyk and her team, especially in terms of NAD and the Beats-and-Binding Model. Our research shows that the major differences include asymmetric distributions of consonant clusters within the word: German is richer word-finally, Russian word-initially. In German, all peripheral morphonotactic consonant clusters are formed directly due to morphological concatenation whilst in Russian there are cases determined by morphology-induced vowel deletion. The differences in cluster inventory are related to the fact that the amount of morphonotactic clusters in Russian is greater due to Russian both being more of a consonantal language and having a richer inflectional and derivational morphology than German. The latter fact explains why the majority of word-initial consonant clusters in Russian is morphonotactic, whereas the lack of German word-initial morphonotactic consonant clusters is due to the absence of monophonemic consonantal prefixes and of morphology-induced word-initial vowel deletion.