A STUDY ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OBSTRUENT AND RESONANT CONSONANTS IN ENGLISH SYLLABLE STRUCTURES

By
Wiwit Sugiyarti
04004173

ABSTRACT

This research entitled “A study on the relationship between the obstruent
and resonant consonants in English syllable structures” is intended to describe the form of English obstruent and resonant consonants and their distribution as well as their relationship in a syllable.

This research belongs to a descriptive qualitative research. The use of qualitative research is suitable since this research creates an analysis procedure and does not use any statistic procedure. The data of the research are mostly monosyllabic words containing of obstruent and resonant consonant as the element of the English syllable structure. In collecting the data the researcher employs documentary technique, which deals with the written sources such as English Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary as the primary sources and English phonological and phonetic books as the secondary sources.

In analyzing the data, the researcher employs the distributional technique and descriptive technique to reveal the distribution and relationship of the obstruent and resonant consonant.

The result of the study shows that in their distribution, both obstruent and resonant consonants may appear in single or cluster to take the onset and coda position of a syllable. Besides that, the certain resonant consonant such as / l / and / n / can also appear as the syllable nucleus. In English phonotactic rules of syllable, the permissible onset cluster is limited to three consonants while the permissible coda cluster is limited to four consonants. In the onset cluster, obstruent consonant always precedes the resonant consonant while in the coda cluster; obstruent consonant always follows the resonant consonant. Based on these phenomenas, the possible pattern of syllabe’s onset are OV, RV, OORV, OOV, and ORV, while the possible pattern of syllable’s coda are VO, VR, VOOOO, VOOO, VROO, VRO, and VOO. O stands for obstruent, V stands for vowel and R stands for resonant. Related to these pattern, obstruent and resonant consonant have close relationship in the syllable building process.