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Chapter2
SonorantexpansioninEnglishandGerman
ArturKijak
UniversityofSilesiainKatowice
Thispaperaimstointegratethreeapparentlydivergentphenomenainwhichthelead-
ingroleisplayedbysonorants.Westartthediscussionbylookingcloselyatsyllabic
consonantsandvowelsyncopeintwolanguages:EnglishandGerman.Additionally
,
thetwostructuresarecomparedtocertaincasesofvowel-zeroalternations.Itwillbe
pointedoutthatsyllabicconsonantsstemfromtheexpansionistbehaviorofsonorants
asareactiontotheirpositionalweakness.Thissolutionisthenextendedtocover
thecasesofvowelsyncopeandvowel-zeroalternationsinbothEnglishandGerman.
Finally
,thefindingsallowustoassumeanactiveroleofsonorantswhichcancover
alongdistancefromasyllabicconsonanttoagoverningrelationwiththepreceding
obstruent.
Keywords:sonorants,syllabicconsonants,vowelsyncope,vowel-zeroalternation
201Introduction
Thepaperexploresthreeapparentlyunrelatedphenomenaintwo
relatedlanguages:EnglishandGerman.Thescopeofourresearchin-
terestshereincludessyllabicconsonants,vowelsyncope,andcertain
vowel-zeroalternations.Welookattheseprocesseswiththeambition
toprovideconvincingevidencefortheirintimaterelationship.Thiswill
inturnallowustooferaunifiedsolutionforthephenomenain
question.Itwillbepointedoutthatallthethreeprocesses,i.e.syllabic
consonant,vowelsyncope,andvowel-zeroalternation,havethesame
originandstemfromtheexpansionistbehaviorofsonorants,whichis
inturnareactionofthelattertopositionalweakness.Moreover,this
