Thesonority sequencing principle (SSP)[1][2] orsonority sequencing constraint is aphonotactic principle that aims to explain or predict the structure of asyllable in terms ofsonority.
The SSP states that thesyllable nucleus (syllable center), often avowel, constitutes a sonority peak that is preceded and/or followed by a sequence of segments –consonants – with progressively decreasing sonority values (i.e., the sonority has to fall toward both edges of the syllable). The sonority values of segments are determined by asonority hierarchy, though these differ to some extent from language to language. Typically they arevowel >glide >liquid >nasal >obstruent (or >fricative >plosive >click). That is, the segment order in a syllable tends to be of the patternꞰ-P-F-N-L-G-V-G-L-N-F-P. The fricative–plosive and nasal–plosive rankings may be reversed. Wright (2004: 51–52) notes,[3]
In a Sonority Sequencing Constraint that is based on perceptual robustness, a stranded consonant (one without a flanking vowel, liquid, or glide) is dispreferred unless it has sufficiently robust internal cues to survive in the absence of formant transitions. ... Segments that we expect to survive without the benefits of flanking vowels, and thus be found at syllable edges with intervening stops, are the sibilant fricatives, potentially other fricatives ... and nasals.
A good example for the SSP in English is the one-syllable wordtrust: The first consonant in thesyllable onset ist, which is astop, the lowest on the sonority scale; next isr, aliquid which is more sonorous, then we have the vowelu/ʌ/ – the sonority peak; next, in thesyllable coda, iss, asibilant, and last is another stop,t. The SSP explains why, for example,trend is a valid English word but *rtedn (flipping the order of consonants) is not. Language processing has also been shown experimentally to be sensitive to sonority violations.
Some languages possess syllables that violate the SSP (Russian and dialectalArabic, for example) while other languages strictly adhere to it, even requiring larger intervals on the sonority scale: InItalian for example, a syllable-initial stop must be followed by either a liquid, aglide or a vowel, but not by a fricative (except: [ps] borrowed words like:pseudonimo,psicologia). Some languages allow a sonority "plateau"; that is, two adjacenttautosyllabic consonants with the same sonority level.Modern Hebrew is an example of such language.
A number of Indo-European languages[4] that typically follow the SSP will violate it with /s/ + stopclusters. For example, in the English wordstring or Italianspago the more sonorous /s/ comes before a less sonorous sound in the onset. In native English words, no phoneme other than /s/ ever violates the SSP. Latin also was able to violate the principle in this way, however the Vulgar Latin dialects that evolved into theWestern Romance languages lost this ability, causing the process of I-prosthesis to occur, whereby an /i/ was inserted at the beginning of such a word, to make the /s/ instead a coda consonant rather than an onset consonant. As a result, Western Romance languages like Spanish and French will haveespada andépée (fromespee) respectively where a non-Western Romance language like Italian hasspada, and even has words such assdraio 'deck-chair' (pronounced /'zdra.jo/).
However, all of the sonority violations noted above occur at word edges, not word-internally. Therefore, some recent phonological accounts postulate that the segments outside of the sonority sequencing may be considered "extrasyllabic consonants", consonants occurring outside of any syllable, and licensed in their language by the word they are part of.[5] Englishstring, for example, would then contain a syllable [tring] with a preceding extrasyllabics.
Certain languages violate the SSP completely, such asDorig. Examples in Dorig includerqa[rk͡pʷa] 'woman',m̄sar[ŋ͡mʷsar] 'poor', andwrēt[wrɪt] 'squid'.[6]
