The syllable is not a valid constituent: evidence from two Serbo-Croatian language games

Olivier Rizzolo (1)

1 BCL, équipe Théorie phonologique, diachronie et dialectologie [jusqu'en 2007]

The purpose of this article is to show how the functioning of two Serbo- Croatian language games, Šatrovački and Utrovački, provides insight into the architecture of phonological representations. In section 2, I start by briefly presenting language games: what are they? why are they of any interest to phonology? Then, the first language game addressed in this paper, i.e. Šatrovački, is introduced. After having given an account of its basic mechanism (section 3.1) and provided some illustration (section 3.2), I show why it calls for the existence of empty nuclei after word-final consonants (cf. section 3.5). Finally, the second language game presented here, i.e. Utrovački, is dealt with. After having introduced its general mechanism (section 4.1), I show that it questions the validity of the syllabic node as a syllabic constituent (section 4.3). Hence the data at hand cannot be accounted for in a classical syllabic framework. After looking back at data from Šatrovački (section 5), I show how a shift in perspective may offer a solution (section 6).

Mots clés: Serbo-Croatian; language game

Domaines: Linguistique

Olivier Rizzolo. The syllable is not a valid constituent: evidence from two Serbo-Croatian language games. Ulyana Savchenko, Magda Goledzinowska, Richard Compton (eds.). Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 15: The Toronto Meeting, Michigan Slavic Publications, pp.264-281, 2006. ⟨hal-01358958⟩