20 May 2003

Abigail Cohn (Cornell University)

Words with diphthong or tense vowel nuclei and post-vocalic liquids, such as flour and eel, are an area of considerable interest in American English due to their variability. Native speakers are not in agreement as to their syllable count and this can differ between dialects. Drawing on a variety of phonological and mophological evidence, we conclude that these words are monosyllabic, but superheavy. We argue that such superheavy syllables are best represented as being trimoraic, due to a requirement that liquids in the rime bear a mora. Results of an acoustic study lend support to our analysis of these words as superheavy monosyllables represented moraically. The universal markedness of trimoraic syllables makes them vulnerable to resolution, which is manifested in different ways in different dialects of American English.

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