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Cognitive Phonology

A presentation for a course in Phonetics and Phonology

Ph.D. Program (2021-2022)

By

Ali – AbdulKareem

Masoumeh Abathar
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Cognitive Linguistics

This approach to Linguistics is an approach to the study of language that deals with
explaining facts concerning language using the mechanism of the human brain. The main
principle behind this field is the human language ability is not separate from the rest of the
cognition. Also the fact that the storage and the retrieval of the linguistic information is not
different than the storage and retrieval of other type of information. Besides, the use of language
for understanding use similar cognitive abilities used for non-linguistic tasks. Cognitive
Linguistics (Henceforth: CL) deals with the fact that Language is embedded in the experience
and environments of its’ users (Mompean, 2006 :1). CL begin from the assumption that language
is a very essential and integral part of the human cognitive abilities and language is organized
following the same principles as those that determine and control the rest of the human cognitive
functioning (Valimaa-Blum ,1945 :1).

This is sharply in contrast with the generative tradition of linguistics that was devised and
developed by Chomsky (1957) and he argued firmly that human beings are assigned by innate
language specific models in the brain that is separate from the rest of our cognitive abilities and
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faculties (1980). The language module in the brain is supposed to determine the form that the
human language can take by supporting it with a biological pre-sitting of the human language
limitation ((Chomsky 1986: xxvi).

CL was officially born in the middle of eighties by the work of Lakoff (1987) and
Langacker (1987). The studies in this school focused on semantics and grammar. The work done
by Lakoff and Langacker contain attempts and references to phonology. Langacker(1987) in
cognitive grammar gives priority to the phonological aspect of linguistic units. However, the
phonological work in CL with exception of a number of scholars like Geoffrey S. Nathan (e.g.
Nathan, 1986, 1994,1996, 1999) or John Taylor (e.g. Taylor, 1989, 1990, 2002), has been very
limited when we comparison to the attention paid to other aspects of linguistics like semantics or
grammar. This is very contradictory and surprising since the phonological aspect of linguistics is
the base of modern linguistics especially the work done by the structuralisms and the Prague
school or generative Linguistics by Chomsky and Hall in 1968 (ibid).

Despite the fact that the work in cognitive phonology has been very poor when compared
to the work done in CL regarding other fields in Linguistics, recent attention has been given to
the phonological aspect. This is reflected in the increasing number of phonological papers or
book or journals like cognitive linguistics and phonology sessions that are held and organized at
the International Cognitive Linguistics Association conferences from 1999. One of the most
important aspects in this respect is the doubled and increasing body of work that is heterogonous
as to the formalism and the different methods it uses. This field is not a stable one like the
metrical or dependency or natural phonology or defined by the theory it uses like laboratory or
experimental phonology. Despite the fact this field is a heterogonous one, researchers in this
area believe that the phonological processes can be explained in terms of the properties and the
mechanisms of the human mind (Mompean, 2006: viii).

Cognitive phonologists also deal with the cognitive component and the generalization
component (Gibbs, 1996; Lakoff, 1990). The cognitive component applied to phonology means
that the phonological concepts, constructs and categories need a psychological reality. This
component gives the phonology the chance to deal with fields like. The generalization
component on the other hand deals with the notion that phonetics, psycholinguistics,
sociolinguistics, second language acquisition, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology
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and many others. The generalization component means that CL investigates the ways in which
the various component of linguistics born from a common set of human cognitive ability and
they draw upon this ability rather than believing that they are produced in separated models in
the mind (Evans et al., in press: 5).

Cognitive phonology also deals with notion that the phonological categories are shaped by
cognitive, articulatory, acoustic, perceptual, historical, distributional, gender or social class
(ibid).

Cognitive Phonology

1- Introduction
One of the basics of cognitive grammar is the notion that any unit in language
consists of three elements that are: the phonological, semantic and the orthographic
elements. The cognitive linguists and grammarians usually shed light on the semantic and
the grammatical aspects leaving the phonological components aside or ignored, so they
pay less attention to cognitive phonology which is regarded as a very important field
within cognitive linguistics (Occhino , 2016 :62).

2- A Historical Background
The first ones who introduced issues that are related to cognitive models for the
study of sound systems was Paul Kaye, in his book, Phonology: A Cognitive View
(1989). Kaye in his book and in general was using evidences from diverse fields like
computer Sciences, cognitive psychology in the field of phonology. Through his
introductions to phonology, Kaye help the student to fully understand the development
from generative to non-liner phonology and addresses what he thought to be
shortcomings of generative approach (Occhino , 2016 :63).
A more to the point explanation about cognitive phonology was written by Lakoff
in the early 1990s. In a piece called Cognitive Phonology Lakoff (1993). Lakoff in his
book explains that phonology should be treated in a similar way in which we treat
grammar using cognitive approaches. He explains that one can use general cognitive
mechanisms to arrive at a cognitive model for the connections between morphological
and phonetic sequences. Lakoff (ibid) states that the cognitive model of phonology
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should be placed within parallel distributed processing and he suits the cognitive model
within the auto segmental framework. Also he argues that cognitive phonology must be
an important an integral part of cognitive grammar and in this way, a cognitive
phonology becomes a part of cognitive approaches to grammar suggesting that it should
become part of cognitive pragmatics, semantics, and morph- syntactic approaches to
grammar to form a bi-directional representation. Other attempts to form a cognitive
approach to phonology have dealt only with some aspects of phonology rather than the
entire field by some figures like Gitte Kristiansen (2006), a cognitive dialectologist and
Bybee (2001) suggesting that the phonetic details should be represented phonologically
using the additional information of sociology like dialectal features. This mean that
merging between cognitive phonology and cognitive sociology not only work in
mediating the connection between phonetics and phonology but also to design a truly
multi-faceted approach to phonetic variation (Occhino, 2016: 65).
The topic of cognitive phonology was risen again in the late 2000 by Nathan (2008,
2009) and Välimaa-Blum (2005, 2009) who were similar to Kaye in many aspects expect
that the later theories used exemplar –based and usage based models of phonology
(Bybee, 2001; K. Johnson, 1997; Pierrehumbert, 2001). Nathan like Kaye addressed the
cognitive side of phonology but till this point , there is no clear theory nor methodology
for cognitive phonology. Välimaa-Blum’s book Cognitive Phonology in Construction
Grammar: Analytic Tools for Students of English (2005) shed light on the non-
modularity of phonology assuming that phonology is related deeply meaningful units
(Occhino, 2016: 65).

Despite all of the previous attempts to design a cognitive study of phonology, a full
and more comprehensive account regarding this field needs to be developed. The field of
phonology has been neglected regarding the cognitive approaches and this is related to
many factors including the assumption that the study of phonology should only be dealt
with theoretically (Occhino,2016: 68).
3- Cognitive Phonology
Goldsmith)1993 :117) explains that the foundations of generative phonology are all
of a mistaken theory. He presented cognitive phonology as a way to simplify phonology
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and to connect it to what the brain is capable of. He states that cognitive phonology
works in the same way that cognitive grammar does.

Cognitive Phonology can be classified as an integral part of cognitive grammar. So, this
field as other cognitive fields in linguistics makes use of general cognitive mechanisms like cross
–dimensional correlation (ibid)

4- The Basics of Cognitive Phonology

Cognitive phonology deals with correspondence between morphemes that are stored in
the mind and phonetic sequences (Goldsmith,1993 :118). Within this field, we deal with
three levels that are morphemic, phonetic, and phonemic levels. These levels are regarded as
the main dimensions of phonological structure. General rules that are dealt with in generative
phonology are replaced by constructions that are used to identify well-formedness within
these levels and across them. Usually, which is the default case, there is identity across
levels. In other cases, rather that the default one like language –specific and universal are
possible. Cross- level constructions or forms are neutral and used in either production or
recognition. Constructions consists of superimposition which means that each construction
imposes a number of constrains. Cognitive phonology is positioned within the general auto-
segmental framework (Ibid).

Cognitive phonology is different from generative phonology. Firstly, in generative

phonology there as we stated before three levels that are phonetic, morphemic, and phonemic
or word levels and there are constructions that are called well-formedness conditions that
hold between and across levels. While generative phonology consists of rules that take inputs
and give out-puts. In generative phonology, each cross level construction has two levels of
representations and a set of corresponding lines and a crossed level line indicates the absence
of the element at a level (Goldsmith,1993 :123).

Here is an example of Mohawk language:

Vowel omission: the first of two consecutive vowels at the level A do not appear at the
level b.

M: V+V
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W:

In cognitive phonology, each rule is applied in word final position while in generative
phonology, the rules are applied in sequence which produce new word final position when they
apply, so they create environment for subsequent rules (ibid :124). Also, in cognitive phonology,
the rules are applied only on two levels while in generative phonology the case is different
(Goldsmith,1993 :125).

4-1 Iteration

Rule iteration is a natural result and a consequence in the theory of cognitive phonology.
While in generative phonology, specific rules are identified as applying to their outputs. In
Cognitive phonology, iteration is regarded as an automatic consequence of the fact that a single
construction may be applied twice or more than one in one word (Goldsmith,1993 :127). One
important difference between generative and cognitive phonology is that generative one needs
right to left iteration rule with intermediate levels while the cognitive one does not need such an
intermediate level (ibid: 127).

5- The Basic Principles of Cognitive Phonology

Geoff Nathan formed a number of principles for cognitive phonology as in the followings:

A- What a cognitive phonology will look like

Nathan (2012 :611) states that developing a cognitive frame within cognitive
grammar for phonology requires a radical and a complete different version of linguistic
thinking specifically with comparison with generative grammar. Cognitive phonology is
rather different from other fields of phonology in that it did not adopt all the patterns of
Chomsky‘s paradigm regarding modularity, innateness and the independence of language
processes of other types of mental processes. The second difference between cognitive
phonology and other fields like syntax is that it continues adopting its basic concepts like
phoneme, vowel, consonant within a functional approach that is accepted by both
generativist and non-generativist phonologists.
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B- The Phoneme as a Category

One of the most basic concepts in phonology are phonemes and phones. It began in
the 19 century and continued till the 20 and 21 centuries with a number of different views
about it. Some of these views consider phoneme as one atomic and undividable unit.
Other views believe that the phoneme consists of a bundle of features and some these
features are distinctive which means that changing one of these distinctive features leads
to a different meaning.
Over the past fifteen years, the cognitive linguists have tried to find and develop
ways of doing cognitive phonology in the same way of cognitive grammar. This was a
challenging task because the cognitive theory has changed over the years from being non-
modular focusing on metaphor and idealized cognitive models to focusing on usage as
the main mechanism of acquisition and structure in the recent years. CL develops two
main views for cognitive phonology. The first and the traditional one emphasis the status
of phoneme as representation for our knowledge of bodily experience and the other to be
expanded on the usage based model.
C- The Phoneme’s Checkered Career
Nathan (2012: 615) states that attempting to develop a cognitive phonology within
CL, the traditional insights regarding phoneme are not wrong and people are really
perceiving phonemically in that they hear their language as a string of basic sounds. They
are not aware of the features that are contained in each of these sounds or phoneme and
the prosodic features in general. Evidence taken from children acquisition of language is
that speakers are forming phonetic patterns that (especially children) may never heard or
spoken before.
The first fundamental notion that can develop a cognitive phonology is that the
identification of phonemes is simply a matter of categorization. The central idea is that
phonemes are cognitive and mental categories. The principle of categorization that
cognitive grammar relies on will extend to all other fields of Linguistics. Starting from
this point, all the principles that have been developed by Cognitive Grammar is
applicable to phonology.
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D-Radial Sets and Processes

The most important unit and the basic block of phonology is the phoneme which is
a psychological real entity and its existence needs to be accounted by the Linguists, so
there is a room for cognitive phonology within cognitive linguistics. This is a very
important point since the fundamental aspects of cognitive grammar is called the content
requirement which means that the only realistic units are semantic, phonological, or
symbolic structures. The phoneme is neither a sound nor a meaning and speakers and
hearers both act as if they are using the real phoneme in their speech not the phonetic
realization. Cognitivists classify sounds mentally into categories in, spite of the fact that
they form categories that are not associated to semantics. Phonemes are not semantic
ones at all and sounds associated with semantics are morphemes. To describe phonemes
cognitively we must classify them in radial categories which are a fundamental linguistic
organizing principle which is based on the notion that members of disparate categories
could be unified in the sense that all members have to share common identifying features.
Applying this categorization to phonology, it means that there is a prototype sound
member and the other phonemes are clustering around it and radiating outwards
according to the well-defined phonemic principles and exactly like those found in
semantics like metaphor, met anomy and image schemata. For instance, evidence from a
varied number of sources suggests that the voiceless unaspirated form [t] is the central
member. Maddieson (1984: 32) states that 99.7% of languages have either dental or
alveolar stops, and children appear not only to acquire them early, but in most cases to
acquire them by replacing their native language voiced and aspirated stops with voiceless
unaspirated ones, whatever the phonemic system of the target language. Hurch (1988)
argues that aspirated stops are non -prototypical compared to unaspirated ones. As it can
be seen, the idea of prototypic is not confined to semantic but can also be found in
phonology and in this regard, many works have been presented in Samuel (1982) and
Kuhl and Iverson (1995). All of these processes that account for phonology as a cognitive
one are called natural processes. In natural phonology, this mean that the difficult sounds
are replaced by easier ones while in cognitive phonology, it means that allophones are
image schemata that are transformations of prototypical sounds that is suitable for
particular environments (Cuyckens and Geeraerts , 2010: 619).
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Natural processes that are done under the umbrella of natural phonology are very
important and essential for cognitive phonology, since our minds are designed to pick up
the easiest ways for performing actions and this applied also to phonology in which we
choose the easiest sound rather than the difficult ones.
Cognitive phonology believes in the notion that phonemes are stored in our minds
and we choose the suitable allophonic variants that represent the surface form in different
occasions. Also child language acquisition studies indicate the idea that children are
involved and do mental processing and they reconstruct the abstract phonemic
representation rather than simply recording words and then reconstructing more abstract
representation from them (ibid).
Cognitive phonology is rather different from other types of standard phonological
theories. Cognitive phonology believes that the phonemes are real specified prototypical
stored in our minds and not list of features. For instance, the aspirated and the
unaspirated t are reflections for the prototype t sound that is a mental image in our mind.
)Representation are mental images of actual sounds and words)

The other difference between cognitive phonology and other types of standard
phonological theories is that the complementary distribution and the phonetic similarities are not
related to phonemes and are not phonological features. Complement distribution is regarded as
consequence of a fact and the notion that context sensitive processes are applied to underlying
forms. The phonetic similarity is defined as the direct consequence or result of the fact that
processes make only minimal changes in the target sounds (Cuyckens and Geeraerts, 2010: 620)

Also the phoneme here is a basic level unit and it’s a real mental image of a sound not a
bundle of distinctive features. We hear phonemes in our heads and so can generally say them
aloud. Otherwise, we can learn to spell or pronounce them. This do not mean that features are not
real. Donegan (2002: 8) has suggested that features ‘‘can be viewed, not as abstract categories,
but as the links of motor and proprioceptive aspects of production, on the one hand, to perceptual
properties (auditory, acoustic, or in acquisition, sometimes visual) on the other. Such connections
may be part of an inborn, ‘prewired’ mechanism like that which appears to link visual stimuli to
facial gestures.’ Phonetic features are not abstract symbols but are the mind’s way of unifying
oral and aural methods.
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E- Neutralization and Overlap

The categories of phonemes are not completely distinct but also overlap in one area. When
speakers face a case of overlap of phonemes in their minds in the absence of other information
they assign the sound to its closest prototype. The classic phoneme theory rejected the phonemes
overlap since it is based on the Aristotelian view of categorization in which a sound could not
simultaneously belong to two different categories at once. Some phonological theories have
discussed the point that in the position of neutralization, an abstract sound or according to
cognitive grammar’s terminology ( more schematic ) is stored instead (ibid : 622).

F- Inventories and Prototypes

One other task of phonological theory is the explaining of why languages select the
phonemes that they contain in their languages. Generally, it appears that languages are free in
choosing their phonemic inventories but in fact, there are many restrictions for each language
regarding the choice of phonemes for languages’ phonemic inventories. This limitedness is
related to the fact that all articulatory, acoustic and auditory features are universal ones and are
related to the humans’ vocal apparatus in general. Human vocal behavior is universal since it the
subject of limitations and constraints that are imposed by the anatomy and physiology that are
responsible of producing the sounds in general. The same can be applied to the fact that
generally the voiceless sounds are perceived better that the voiced sounds (Cuyckens and
Geeraerts, 2010: 622)

If we had a look on the sounds that are around us, we will find that the distribution of
sounds follows the same typical prototype category structure and the fact that overall categories
are universal. The prototypical examples that are used in different languages vary just like
prototypical bird will vary from ecosystem to ecosystem, phoneme porotype will vary. And also
in the same way that non-prototypical birds are found, there are non-prototypical phonemes like
clicks, implosives, nasalized vowels, and many others. Each of these non-prototypical phonemes
will be under pressure to convert to a less marked sound and historical accidents will lead these
sounds to be converted to new versions of themselves (Cuyckens and Geeraerts: 622).

Generally, sounds are under prototype effects both at the individual and the selection level
which is called the level of creation of inventories. The same prototypical principles are at work
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in these two levels. At the level of individual sounds, these principles select a sound among a
number of sounds as the ideal one. At the systematic level, the choose a number of suboptimal
sounds to be the marked ones (ibid).

There are a number of morphophonemic alternations and processes that are not actually
phonological and are dealt with differently according to different phonological principles. The
relations of morphophonemic related rules are not purely phonological and they are leftovers of
earlier phonetic based processes that have lost their phonetic basis. Within Generative
phonology, such alternations are called ‘’crazy rules’’ and within cognitive grammar and
phonology such rules are not considered rules at all but they are schemas that are taken from
patterns that are already stored (ibid).

There is an important difference between cognitive grammar and cognitive phonology in

the sense that cognitive grammar claim for a limited version of modularity, while cognitive
phonology is related to enriched motor skills which is very different from patterns of similarity
across forms. Phonology is related to what is hard and what is easy for a human vocal tract to
perform while morphology deals with searching for the recognition of similarities across patterns
(Cuyckens and Geeraerts, 2010: 623).

J-Usage-Based Models
1- The Basic Model

The motivation for this view of the phonological structure was the work done by y
Langacker (1988) who discussed that units of Language was greater and larger than what was
expected by generative linguistics. Language is instead of what was claimed before is massively
redundant, and more is stored and less generated by any rule. The basic model argues that
individual instances are stored in huge numbers as well as rules. Rules according to Langaker
(1988) are abstractions that can be not produced unless based on a huge number of instance that
allow the formation of the regularities in the form of schema that the instances support. So, rules
cannot be established and maintained without a prior and a background knowledge. The
abstractions or rules that are established of similar examples are known as schemas and the
establishment of particular schemas is called schematization (Cuyckens and Geeraerts, 2010:
624).
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Following the principles of the usage based grammar Bybee (2000, 2001;

this volume, chapter 36), Palmer (1996), and Langacker (2000) state that words are stored
with their cognitive details and if words are pronounced in different ways, so each individual
pronunciation is stored separately.

Bybee says: Phonemes, then, do not exist in the representations of words; they are not
units of lexical representation. Instead phonemes are abstract patterns that emerge in the
phonological organization of the lexicon (see Langacker [2000]). To the extent that abstract
phonetic units are grouped together into more abstract units, this is done on the basis of the
phonetic implementation schemata, and is not a strict matter of complementary distribution.
(Bybee 2000: 72)

Bybee and Langacker argued and state that phonemes do not exist as units but intended to
describe the relations of similarity among phonetic strings. All of the above points indicate that
phonemes are stored in our minds separately of lexical units and they are abstract patterns that
are used in the phonological organization of the lexicon.

2-The Nature of Online Processes in a

Usage-Based Model

, Bybee (2000, 2001) in her study of /t/ and /d/ deletions in English, argues the point that
some individual past tense forms are stored in our minds as a whole. Even the regular past tense
forms many not be generated through morphological processes and rules but phonological ones
that are stored in our minds independently. They are online processes that are related to the
morphological processes, instead, the individual pronunciation of past tense form of verbs with
different versions and deletion is simply an end point on a continuum of shorter and shorter
alveolar structures. So, each individual sound is stored in our mind is a storage of widely varying
forms with a huge range of uses and implementation (Nathan , 2010 : 611)

H- Synthesis—Phonology as Human Action

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6- Phonology and Cognitive Grammar

Both phonology and especially natural phonology make the same claims about the
relationship between linguistic structure and the non-linguistic aspects of human cognition. Also,
similar to cognitive grammar, natural phonology attempts to establish the psychological reality
of the components with the inner working of language according to the principles of psychology.
The phoneme and its constituents’ features are regarded as mental images of physical reality, so
the sound system of a language is a matter of cognitive activity in the same way that the
grammar system is a mental activity (Valimaa-Blum ,1945 :29).

Phonology is independent in the sense that dividing it intonational phrases, feet and
syllables are highly independent of the organization of the symbolic units (Taylor 2002: 81).
This does not mean that phonology does not depend on cognitive potential and needs. The
phonological processes are independent but they depend at the same time on cognitive and
mental processes.

The task of cognitive phonology as part of cognitive grammar is to connect the mental
representation of morphemes and other symbolic units to the phonetic sequences that leads to
their realization as utterances. The knowledge of the sound structure involves the phonemic or
word level and the phonetic or the utterance level and they are divided in to:

1-The morpheme level: This level deals with the lexicon with the entire the non-automatic
allomorphs and the word schemes. The lexical morphemes are reflected in terms of phonemes
and these phonemes are abstract prototypic ones. In this respect, the phonemes are central mental
units and the base of morphemes and the distinguish between words through distinctive features.

2-Phonemic or world level: The morphological schemas and lexical stems are responsible
for creating words through the process of unification which deals with selecting the relevant
allomorphs from the lexicon. Words are phonological fully specified and based for every feature.

3- Phonetic or utterance level: in this level, words are built in to utterances. And the
realization of speech may range from highly carful speech to less carful or hypo speech
(Valimaa-Blum ,1945 :30).
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7. The Phonological Entities in Cognitive Phonology

7.1 Phonemes

In Cognitive Linguistics, phonemes – and even allophones – are considered as mental

categories of sounds that are classified as somehow ‘the same’. Given this, research has shown
that these segment-sized categories can hardly ever be defined by necessary and sufficient
conditions. The phoneme seems to lack features shared by all category members. Rather than
positing a set of defining features for phonemes (or phoneme categories), the instance-schema
network view and the earlier ‘radial’ view of category structure (Nathan, 2007) claims that
phoneme categories have a prototype, or central member as well as context-induced extensions.
In the case of the phoneme /t/ in English, for example, a voiceless alveolar stop [t] is considered
as the prototype while other types of allophones like taps, glottalized stops, etc. are extensions
from that prototype. In the absence of defining features and with features being unevenly
distributed across category members, category coherence and cohesion are attained by
overlapping similarities with different category members or similarity to a central or prototype
member of the category. This explains why phoneme category sometimes overlaps, as some
segments may be similar to the members of two or more phoneme categories. Typical cases of
phoneme category overlapping are alveolar taps for the phonemes /t, d/ in English or labiodental
nasals [ɱ] for the nasal phonemes /m, n/ in Spanish.

7.2 Features

Like phonemes, features are considered to be categories instantiated by different types of

sounds or sound combinations. These features can include one single dimension, traditional
‘phonological features’ such as [voiced] or [voiceless] or more than one, the so called traditional
natural classes (Langacker, 2007: 445). For example, natural classes like ‘voiceless stop’ in
English are feature schemas that capture the similarity in the allophony and distributional
behaviour of /p, t, k/ (Taylor, 2002: 147). One common view is also that feature categories are
abstracted from speakers’ encounters with language-specific events in the course of cognitive
development and language acquisition rather than being hardwired universals (Taylor, 2002:
160). Cognitive feature categories exhibit the same properties as other categories. To start with,
feature categories lack defining features. As a case in point, a feature like [sonority] lacks
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defining features that can be applied to all segments labelled ‘sonorous’ (Nathan, 2007). There is
a category overlaps in features categories. Contrasting feature categories like
[consonant]/[vowel] or [voiceless]/[voiced] overlap in some of their category members. For
example, approximants /w/ and /j/ are variably categorized as vowels or consonants by speakers.
Similarly, /b, d, g/, typically devoiced in many of their realizations in English, are variably
categorized as instances of [voiced] and [voiceless] (Jaeger and Ohala, 1984). Finally, members
of feature categories differ in their degree of prototypicality. Standard accounts of distinctive
features assign binary +/– values to most features, but in those accounts it makes no sense to ask
whether a given segment exemplifies a distinctive feature better or worse. Instead the feature is
present in the segment (‘being a category member is being a good member’) or not (‘the segment
is not a category member’). Classical phonological distinctive feature accounts admit that the
specific realization of phonemes have scalar – or continuous – phonetic values for a given
distinctive feature, but they have no interest in those values in view of the strict distinction
between phonetics and phonology. However, work in Cognitive Linguistics has shown that some
segments exemplify feature categories better than others (Mompean, 2002; Nathan2007). In this
regard, the consonants /b, d, g/ are considered to be less prototypical members of the category
[voiced] than liquids or nasals.

7.3 Syllables

Syllables in cognitive phonology as categories instantiated by sound sequences that can

themselves be conceived of as sequences of segments (Nathan, 2008; Taylor, 2004), and that
their unit status may be grounded in speech production, being motor units that are the beats that
make up rhythmic behaviour (Nathan, p.c.). Syllable categories can be abstracted at a relatively
low and specific level of abstraction (e.g. bead [biːd]) or at a very high and schematic level, that
is the syllable schemas often referred to as syllable templates (e.g. bead [CVC]). In other words,
particular sequences of sounds that count as syllables can also be regarded as instances of
syllable schemas (e.g. CVC, CV, CCVC, etc.). Thus, CVC is a consonant-vowel-consonant
generalization over specific syllables like till, pot, mug, etc. The abstraction of intermediate
levels of specificity can also capture the different phonotactic patterns and constraints in a given
language (Kumashiro, 2000; Langacker, 2007: 445–6). Thus, the schema [hVC] captures the
generalization that syllables in English can have the phoneme /h/ in the onset and a consonant in
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the coda (e.g. head, hop, ham, etc.). However, the schema *[CVh] is not allowed in English, as
there are no syllables that end in /h/.

syllables, like phonemes or features, are not the classical categories they once were thought
to be. The very concept of ‘syllable’ in specific languages may itself be a category that lacks
defining features. Thus, in English, syllable nuclei tend to be vowels, and they are often specified
as V in syllable templates, but the existence of syllabic consonants in English – for example
button /ˈbʌtṇ/ – shows that a syllable nucleus need not be a vowel. Similarly, syllables need not
have an onset and may have no coda either. Thus a syllable in English can be conceived of as a
complex category with syllable templates or members connected by a network of overlapping
similarities but with no common features other than having a nucleus that can be a vowel or a
syllabic consonant. As to syllable boundaries, it should be noted that although syllabification is
often straightforward and strictly categorical (see e.g., Nathan, 2008: 44, 53), this is not always
the case. The phenomenon of ‘ambisyllabicity’ shows that syllable boundaries may overlap on
certain occasions. For example, subjects variably assign the /l/ of melon to the coda of the
preceding syllable – that is /ˈmel.ən/– or to the head of the following syllable – that is /ˈme.lən/–
(Treiman and Danis, 1988). Taylor (2002) considers that ambisyllabicity can be due in some
cases to the requirement in English that all syllables have an onset. Thus /z/ in these are can be
assigned to both these and are (p. 88). Finally, different syllable schemas or templates may vary
in their degree of prototypicality. For example, the CV template has long been claimed to be a
prototypical syllable structure in the world’s languages (Nathan, 2008: 36), and it is certainly
more prototypical in English than the VCCCC template (e.g. sixths /sɪksθs/), which occurs only
in a few words.

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