Syllables without vowels: Phonetic and phonological evidence from Tashlhiyt Berber

International audienceIt has been proposed that Tashlhiyt is a language which allows any segment,<br />including obstruents, to be a syllable nucleus. The most striking and controversial<br />examples taken as arguments in favour of this analysis involve series of words<br />claimed to contain only obstruents. This claim is disputed in some recent work,<br />where it is argued that these consonant sequences contain schwas that can be<br />syllable nuclei. This article presents arguments showing that vowelless syllables<br />do exist in Tashlhiyt, both at the phonetic and phonological levels. Acoustic,<br />fibrescopic and photoelectroglottographic examination of voiceless words (e.g.<br />[tkkststt]) provide evidence that such items lack syllabic vocalic elements. In addition,<br />two types of phonological data, metrics and a spirantisation process, are<br />presented to show that in this language schwa is not a segment which can be<br />independently manipulated by phonological grammar and which can be referred<br />to the syllable structure