Sonority patterns in Lelepa onset clusters

Abstract

Lelepa, an Oceanic language of central Vanuatu, has complex syllable structures with onsets of up to three consonants and codas of up to two, which is rare among Oceanic languages. This study examines two-consonant onset clusters using natural speech data, showing a preference for certain clusters and frequent violations of the sonority sequencing principle. Clusters with smaller sonority distances are preferred, which is uncommon crosslinguistically. These findings enhance our understanding of Lelepa’s phonotactics and contribute to the broader typology of phonotactic constraints. Show more