An Introduction to Relational Network Theory - History, Principles, and Descriptive Applications - Adolfo Martín García
4. An RNT Approach to Russian Obstruent Onsets
An Introduction to Relational Network Theory - History, Principles, and Descriptive Applications - Adolfo Martín García
Adolfo Martín García [+]
Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience (INCYT, Argentina) and the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET, Argentina)
Adolfo M. García is Scientific Director of the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience at the Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience (INCYT, Argentina) and Researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET, Argentina).
Description
The present chapter brings together analytical and descriptive work on Russian phonology and considers it from an RNT perspective. Russian has a very complex syllable structure, with the syllable onset being the most complex part. Maximal word-initial clusters may have four phonemes, of which the final one is always a sonant (e.g., /r/). This resolves to wordinitial obstruent onsets of up to three phonemes. Together they constitute the majority of onsets in both type and token. Here we focus precisely on obstruent onsets.