Syllable Theory in Prosodic Phonology Routledge Library Editions: Phonetics and Phonology Series

First published in 1988. The goal of this study is to explore the workings of a syllable theory which is an integral part of Prosodic Phonology. It will be shown that theory-internal considerations and a variety of empirical arguments converge on a conception of syllabification as continuous template matching governed by syllable wellformedness conditions and a directional parameter. This title will be of interest to students of language and linguistics.

1. Theoretical Framework 2. Conditions on Syllabification 3. Continuous Syllabification and Stray Erasure 4. Syllabification and Stray Operations 5. Directionality in Syllabification; Bibliography

Since her dissertation, which developed a prosodic theory of the syllable, Junko Itô’s work has been concerned with constraint-based phonological theory, specifically with an optimality-theoretic model of phonology. One empirical focus of her research has been the morphophonemics and prosody of Japanese, including compound structures and their phonological form.