Syllable Structure and Labial Co-Occurrence in Taiwanese

Abstract

Labial co-occurrence in Taiwanese, a Southern Min dialect of Chinese, is severely restricted. Syllables cannot contain two labials in the same nucleus, the same rime, or one in the onset & the other in the coda. They can, however, contain one labial in the onset & the other in the nucleus. This peculiar phenomenon can be explained if the syllable has a rich hierarchical structure. Phonological processes that operate on the syllable (eg, reduplication, assimilation, & game language) demonstrate that Taiwanese syllable structue is [C [[G V G] C]]. The labial co-occurrence facts can be understood in terms of hierarchical distance: labials are allowed just in case one is maximally embedded from the other. A flat syllable structure, or a poor hierarchical one (per moraic theories), fails to provide the necessary formal mechanism to account for the facts. AA.