On the Shapes of the Polish Word: Phonotactic Complexity and Diversity

Abstract

The aim of this contribution is to identify the dominant shapes of the Polish word with reference to three criteria: cluster complexity (i.e., cluster size), saturation (the number of clusters in a word), and diversity (in terms of features of consonant description). The dominant word shape is understood as the most frequent or typical skeletal pattern, expressed by means of alternations or groupings of Cs (consonants) and Vs (vowels), e.g., CVCCV etc., or by means of specific features (of place, manner, voice, and the sonorant/obstruent distinction). Our work focuses on 2 aspects of Polish phonotactics: (1) the relation between cluster complexity and saturation of words with clusters, (2) the degrees of diversity in features of place, manner, and voice within clusters. Using corpus data, we have established that only 4.17% of word shapes have no clusters. The dominant word shape for a one-cluster word is CVCCVCV. The most frequent scenario for a word shape is to contain two clusters, of which 67% are a combination of a word initial and a word medial cluster. We have found that: (1) cluster length is inversely proportional to the number of clusters in a word; (2) nearly 73% of word types contain clusters of the same size, e.g., two CCs or two CCCs (Polish words prefer saturation over complexity); (3) MOA is more diversified than POA across clusters and words.

Linguistica Silesiana

“…As is well-known, languages differ considerably in terms of their phonotactic structure, with those admitting only CV sequences placed at one end of the scale and those which contain heavy consonant clusters at the other end. While English and Polish, with numerous word-initial, medial and fi nal consonant clusters, are located in the middle of this scale, the complexity of Polish phonotactics surpasses greatly that of English (for a comparison of the two systems see Zydorowicz et al 2016). This means that many sequences of sounds which are possible (legal) in one language are impossible (illegal) in another.…”

“…Cyran and Gussmann 1998), Optimality Theory (Rochoń 2000) and Natural Phonology (e.g. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk 2014; Zydorowicz et al 2016).…”