THE UNFOLDING OF SUPRASEGMENTAL REPRESENTATIONS - A CROSS-LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE

An analysis of phonological speech errors in Arabic, English and Germa n is carried out with a view to probing into the organization of segme nts within syllables and words. Arabic slips are shown to be less stru cture-sensitive than English and German ones. Being absent from underl ying representation, suprasegmental structures are assumed to unfold g radually in real time. The erection of hierarchical representations is claimed to be slower in Arabic than in English and German because the non-concatenative morphology of Arabic prevents an early assignment o f consonants to structural slots. In contrast, English and German word s allow the early build-up of hierarchical structures because sufficie nt phonological information is available from the beginning of the der ivation.