On the universality of the clitic group as domain of phonological rules and their status in the Prosodic Hierarchy

Abstract

The status of the clitic group as a constituent of the prosodic hierarchy has been discussed for a long time. On the one hand, authors like Nespor and Vogel (1986) argue in favor of its presence in the prosodic hierarchy, and on the other hand, authors like Peperkamp (1997) try to explain why this presence is not adequate. Besides discussing these different points of view, this article searches for a phonological rule that is specific of the clitic group in the English language, which would argue in favor of its place in the prosodic hierarchy. Thus, this article presents the rule of vowel reduction in English, in order to question the universality of the clitic group as a domain for phonological rules. Key-words: Clitic Group; Prosodic Hierarchy; Vowel Reduction.