Hi there!

I'm new to linguistforum. As a prospective linguistics phd, I thought it'd be good to get set up somewhere I can get help when needed (coming from an engineering background, said help will probably be primarily basic stuff).

I'm practicing an entrance exam for a linguistics department and the question requires separating syllable boundaries (with a period) in the IPA transcriptions of words from the language Alabaman. I think I understand syllable boundaries generally speaking pretty well, but one word is throwing me off.

[okkʰi:tʰatkʰa:] ('sea')

First, I'm wondering what is the difference between the above and a hypothetical word [okʰi:tʰatkʰa:] (in other words, what's the difference between [kkʰ] and [kʰ])?

Second, I'm thinking the syllable boundaries would be: [ok.kʰi:.tʰat.kʰa:]. What do you think?

I appreciate your help!!

There is an article, "The Structural Phonology of Alabaman, a Muskogean Language", published in 1968 in the International Journal of American Linguistics, which "touches on" the topic, but I would say that the question hasn't actually been touched, there has simply been hand waving. You should, however, be aware that linguists have a bad habit of making stuff up. You might want to look at Montler's Alabaman dictionary at http://www.cas.unt.edu/~montler/Alabama/Dictionary/, which gives the form [okihatka] as "ocean". You should note that aspiration is not phonemic in the language, so the transcription you've been given is an "interpretation" of something else.

My reading of Rand's article indicates that the [kkʰ] transcription may be the phonetic property of being "fortis, slightly aspirated" in onset position. He actually exemplifies k-allophony with the word [okki:tatka:] "sea", without the aspiration or the syllable boundary. In other words, somebody else modified Rand's data, assuming some rules. This then raises the question of how Montler's data conflicts with Rand's. You could in fact ask Montler -- it may be disagreements in how to interpret the same phonetic output, or there could be real language differences, though Rand and Montler partially used the same informant.

It is not clear what the "question" requires of you / tells you. In my opinion, it is unreasonable and professionally outrageous to give a transcription like "[okkʰi:tʰatkʰa:]" and require a person to supply syllable boundaries. It is well known that "syllable boundaries" are not phonetic transcriptional primitives, they are a phonological device invoked to simplify certain phonological rules. That means that unless you have some reason to posit a syllable bounday, for some phonological purpose, you should not provide any syllable boundaries. Such a request is analogous to asking "What is the underlying form of [akʰatta]", when you have no basis for saying anything about underlying forms.

Since this is such an outrageous requirement, I don't actually believe that that is what you're being told to do, so maybe re-read the instructions, and provide a bit more information on the data and instructions.

Often test/homework questions will alter data for convenience, even if just by selecting 'relevant' (=easy or exceptionless, etc.) data. And completely constructed data sets are also sometimes used, even with good reason: to make it impossible to look up the answer. The only advice that fits is to suggest trying to figure out WHY the question is being asked, and then answer it from that perspective.