A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

2 Prosody
Table 2.5: Logically possible syllabification patterns for the consonant center
C-center segment count
one C
two Cs
three Cs
possible patterns
V.CV VC.V
V.CCV VC.CV VCC.V
V.CCCV VC.CCV VCC.CV VCCC.V
highly unusual onsets (such as /vkŋ/, /pm/ or /vɲ/) unattested in any other onset
positions. Similarly, trying to maximize codas, the patterns VCCC.V and VCC.V
would also result in highly unusual codas (such as /vkŋ/ or /vɲ/) unattested in
any other coda positions. While the pattern VCC.CV would also create some
otherwise unattested codas (such as /vt/ or /rk/), these are phonologically similar
to attested word-final codas such as /st/ or /jk/ (also fricative+plosive and
oral-sonorant+plosive, respectively). The patterns VC.CV, V.CV and VC.V result
in onsets and codas which are not unusual. However, keeping in mind the far
greater diversity of single consonant phonemes licensed in word-initial onset position
compared to word-final coda position, syllabification favoring singleton
onset consonants results in onsets and codas which most resemble word-initial
onsets and word-final codas. Note that even then, onsets and codas in positions
other than the consonant center form subsets of the possibilities in consonant
center position (with the exception of a few non-native word-onset clusters). It
is therefore most plausible that syllables are assigned a single consonant segment
as an onset in syllabification. The examples in (4) through (9) show some results
of this syllabification for a variety of consonant constellations in the consonant
center.
(4) /anaː/ aná
[a.naː]
‘have\2sg.prs’
(5) /atne-t/ adnet
[at̚.net]
‘have-inf’
(6) /lokta/ luokta
[lʊ͡okʰ.ta]
‘bay\nom.pl’
(7) /kisto-ʧ/ gistotj
[kis.toʧ]
‘box-dim’
[6278]
[0006]
[pit080702b.54m38s]
[6048]
32