Latin syllable structure in typological perspective

Three parameters are considered in the typology of Latin syllable structure: 1) phonotaxis of syllable structure, 2) correspondence of syllable structure with morpheme structure, 3) syllable structure processes. With respect to these parameters, Latin may be characterized as follows: 1. Latin allows moderate complexity of the onset, which, during its history, gets further reduced. Similarly, complexity of the nucleus is mostly reduced to a single short vowel. Latin allows relatively complex rhymes, which, however, get reduced in the language history. 2. Latin (as well as Romance languages) goes relatively far in blurring morphological boundaries, even left stem boundaries and, thus, word boundaries, by ‘liaison’. 3. Latin phonology is relatively faithful to lexical representations. However, syllable structure is simplified, at the expense of the phonological manifestation of grammatical boundaries. Christian Lehmann, Latin syllable structure in typological perspective 2