Phonotactics

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Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek phōnḗ 'voice, sound' and taktikós 'having to do with arranging')^[1] is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters and vowel sequences by means of phonotactic constraints.

Phonotactic constraints are highly language-specific. For example, in Japanese, consonant clusters like /rv/ do not occur. Similarly, the clusters /kn/ and /ɡn/ are not permitted at the beginning of a word in Modern English but are permitted in German and were permitted in Old and Middle English.^[2] In contrast, in some Slavic languages /l/ and /r/ are used alongside vowels as syllable nuclei.

Syllables have the following internal segmental structure:

• Onset (optional)
• Rhyme (obligatory, comprises nucleus and coda):
  • Nucleus (obligatory)
  • Coda (optional)

Both onset and coda may be empty, forming a vowel-only syllable, or alternatively, the nucleus can be occupied by a syllabic consonant. Phonotactics is known to affect second language vocabulary acquisition.^[3]