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is suggested by Blevin’s (1995: 211) sonority hierarchy (for English) in which t has a
higher sonority than k. 2 On the other end of the scale, the lack of the low in the nucleus
may be explained by the fact that is usually considered to have an open-mid aperture in
phonetic descriptions, even though it patterns as a low vowel in Mono.
The presence of the CGV syllable type is not unusual. In many languages of the
world, the only case of consonant clusters involves CG sequences (Kenstowicz 1994: 42;
Bendor-Samuel 1962), 3 and Boyd (1995: 15) notes that this is true in Ubangian. In many
of the languages where this is the case, it is clearly advantageous to add this syllable type
to the inventory of syllable types in the language. As mentioned in Chapter 4, Pike (1947)
allows for this possibility. Burquest (1998: 159) cites the case of Senoufo where this is
clearly the preferred solution. Based on these reasons, and the discussion in Chapter 4, I
have added CGV to the inventory of syllable patterns in Mono.
The second ambiguous syllable type is CV1V2. A small number of words in Mono
contain two non-identical vowels in hiatus, e.g. >= >= >= >= ‘priest’ (a complete list is given in
Chapter 4). These vowels could be analyzed as belonging either to the same syllable
(CVV) or to separate syllables (CV.V). The first option would require the addition of a
CVV syllable type to the Mono inventory. Both options would require increasing the
inventory of word shapes. However, these words are limited in number and are found
mostly in ideophones and loan words. Because of their marginal nature, I do not
incorporate them into the present analysis. This pattern is discussed in more detail in
Chapter 4.
2 Having said this, it appears, however, that Blevins has misread the figure in Ladefoged (1982)
from which she obtains this hierarchy. In the original chart (Figure 10.1, p. 222), t and k have equal
sonority.
3 According to Clements’ (1990) Sonority Dispersion Principle, OLV is the most optimal threemember
initial cluster, suggesting that that would be the first three-member cluster to appear in a language.
Empirical evidence suggests, however, that OGV is the first to appear.
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