An Asymmetrical Realization of Nasal-Obstruent Clusters in English

This study focuses on the asymmetrical realization of homorganic nasal-obstruent stop clusters in English when they occur word medially and word finally. This uneven realization of NC clusters is not only controlled by the place of articulation of the cluster constituents but also by the agreement of voicing feature specifications of the cluster elements. We propose context-sensitive constraints, which are more specified versions than *NC (Pater, 1996, 1999, 2004). The result of the study reveals that homorganic NC clusters consisting of coronal place feature are faithfully realized word finally while they are constrained word medially. The deletion of voiceless post-nasal coronal stop should be considered a new language specific strategy to avoid *NC.