Sesquisyllabic languages are languages whose prosodic words canonically consist of one syllable and a half. The term “sesquisyllable”, literally “one-and-a-half syllable”, was originally coined by Matisoff (1973) to refer to words that consist of an unstressed “minor” syllable followed by a fully stressed “major” syllable. The syllabicity of the minor syllable is carried by a neutral vowel or a syllabic consonant (Diffloth 1976: 232; Svantesson 1983: 27). Even though a priori the minor syllable can be located on either side of the major syllable, in the context of SEA the minor syllable always precedes the major syllable. Although Sloan (1988), Shaw (1994), Cho and King (2003), and I (Pittayaporn 2005c) have all argued that the minor syllable is a prosodically degenerate syllable of some kind, similar to the case of Polish clusters discussed in §2.2.2.2, it is likely that the so-called sesquisyllables differ structurally from one language to another. In this dissertation, I define a sesquisyllable as a prosodic word that consist of two syllables, the first of which is unstressed and lacks a phonological vowel. According to this definition, a sesquisyllable contrasts with a disyllable in that the first syllable of a disyllable does have a contrastive vowel.
An important typological observation is that sesquisyllabic languages usually allow for monosyllabic words while monosyllabic languages do not allow
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sesquisyllabic forms. This difference is clearly illustrated by comparing the sesquisyllabic Kammu and its monosyllabic relative Vietnamese. A good example of a sesquisyllabic language is Kammu discussed above in relation to the importance of the prosodic word. Other examples of sesquisyllabic languages include Burmese (Green 2005), Palaung (Kasisopa 2003), Tariang (L-Thongkum 2001), Chru (Jrang et al.
1983), and Jingpho (Maran 1978), to cite a few.
With respect to the word size requirements, sesquisyllabic languages show effects of both word maximality and word mininallity so that well-formed prosodic words are exactly one metrical foot. For example, a Kammu prosodic word is either C(C)VV, C(C)V(V)C, C(C).C(C)VV or C(C).C(C)V(V)C as discussed in §2.2.1.
Assuming that the minor syllable is light, a sesquisyllable must be considered a prototypical iamb. This means that sesquisyllabic languages require their prosodic words to be exactly one iambic foot: either a single heavy syllable or a light syllable followed by a heavy syllable. Iambic feet consisting of two light syllables, also known as even iambs do not appear to be allowed in these languages (Pittayaporn 2005c).
Although the formal analysis of sesquisyllables may still leave room for discussion what sesquisyllables are formally, it is important to draw a distinction between sesquisyllables and disyllables (see §2.4.2). The crucial difference between the two types of prosodic word is that the onsets of the major and minor syllables interact very closely. While the onsets of the two syllables in disyllables are usually independent from each other, the onsets of the minor and major syllables in sesquisyllabic words may pose restrictions on each other. The Kammu language exemplifies such interaction very clearly. Prosodic words whose minor syllable and major syllable onsets are identical, i.e. */p.p-/, */t.t-/, */s.s-/ etc., are not attested in Kammu as described by Svantessoon (1983). Second, sesquisyllabic words often violate SSP or show lower sonority distance than 2 (see §2.2.2.2). Therefore, the
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minor syllable and the major syllable onsets together will be referred to in this study as
“sesquisyllabic clusters”. This term is used in opposition to “tautosyllabic clusters”, which refers to true clusters that function as the onset of a single syllable.
Sesquisyllables also differ quite markedly from prototypical monosyllables.
While complex onsets of monosyllables, i.e. monosyllables with unmarked initial clusters, obey SSP and show sonority distance of at least 2, complex onsets of sesquisyllables do not necessarily follow the generalizations. This distinction is shown in Table 2-9.
Table 2-9: Onsets and syllables in Kammu (from Pittayaporn 2005c) Initials monosyllabic sesquisyllabic
obstruent+obstruent
obstruent+nasal
obstruent+liquid
We see that when a consonant sequence in Kammu violates SSP or has relatively low sonority distance among its members, it is parsed as sesquisyllabic. For instance, a sequence of two obstruents are always realized as sesquisyllabic, e.g /p.téʔ/
‘earth’, never */ptéʔ/. Similarly, a sequence of a liquid followed by an obstruent is also parsed as a sesquisyllabic cluster, e.g. /l.cɔ̀:t/ ‘to become snotty’, never */lcɔ̀:t/. On the other hand, if the consonant sequence obeys the SSP, it may be realized either as a sesquisyllabic or tautosyllabic cluster. Kammu in particular contrast /kl-/ as in /kló:k/
‘bamboo bowl’ and /k.l-/ as in /k.ló:k/ ‘slit drum’. Independent evidence in Kammu for this contrast comes from tone patterning. Furthermore, in words whose major syllables have onset clusters, those onset clusters must respect the sonority hierarchy.
For example, /s.kró:/ ‘to suddenly bend down head’ has an initial sesquisyllabic
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cluster, which in turn consists of an initial /s-/ and a well-formed tautosyllabic cluster /kr-/. These generalizations are based only on Kammu, but to my knowledge they seem to hold for other sesquisyllabic languages as well. They play a crucial role in the reconstruction of PT complex onsets in §2.3.2 and Chapter 4.
In addition, many sesquisyllabic languages allow minor syllables that are more complex than a single consonant. For example, Jahai (Burenhult 2005), a Mon-Khmer language of Malaysia, has an abundance of sesquisyllabic words whose minor syllables consists of two consonants, e.g. /sl.tuh/ ‘to attack’, /cn.rɔs/ ‘nail’, /ʔn.teŋ/
‘ear’. However, the second consonant has to be a sonorant and must agree in place of articulation with the onset of the major syllable if it is a nasal. Similarly, Kammu also allows for minor syllables that consist of two consonants but in addition to sonorants it also permits obstruents as the second consonant, cf. /r̀t.ʔàt/ ‘plug’, /pc̀.rà:c/ ‘mesentry’.
However, in Kammu these obstruents must be identical to the coda of the major syllable (Svantesson 1983: 28-29)15.
As in the other types of languages, the set of permissible codas in each language seem unrelated to the fact that they are sesquisyllabic. While Buyang only allows final stops and nasals (Li 1999), the coda of the major syllable of prosodic words in Nyah Kur may take a stop, a fricative, a nasal, a liquid, or a glide as coda (Diffloth 1984). Furthermore, sesquisyllabic languages also share with monosyllabic and disyllabic languages the lack of phonation-type contrast in coda stops (Matisoff 2001; Pittayaporn 2005a; Rhee 2003) and the ban against complex codas (Rhee 2003).
These restrictions on codas are clearly a Southeast Asian phonological trait (Matisoff 2001; Rhee 2003).
15 This type of Kammu minor syllables is always morphologically complex, created either by prefixation or infixation (Svantesson 1983: 29).
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In sum, the canonical shape of a prosodic word in sesquisyllabic languages is exactly one iambic foot, and may have one of the following shapes: C(C)VV, C(C)VC, C(C).C(C)VV, or C(C).C(C)V(V)C. While tautosyllabic clusters in sesquisyllabic languages obey SSP, and have the sonority distance of 2, sesquisyllabic clusters may or may not.