Introduction

Although controversial, the syllable has played a central role in phonological theory (Blevins, 1995, Hooper, 1973, 1976, 1978, Fudge, 1969, Goldsmith, 1990, Hayes, 1989, Hyman, 1985, Ito, 1986, Kahn, 1976, Kurylowicz, 1948, Moren, 1999, 2002, Prince, 1990, Prince and Smolensky, 1993, Pulgram, 1970, Rubach and Booij, 1990, Selkirk, 1982, 1984, Steriade, 1982, Venneman, 1988, 1974, Zee, 1995). One of the main arguments for the inclusion of syllables in phonology is that this abstract unit allows for more economical phonological descriptions. Kahn (1976) observes that many rules of English, such as flapping, glottalization and t-deletion, require reference to the disjunctive environment ‘before a consonant or word boundary, expressed in Sound Pattern of English (Chomsky and Halle, 1968) notation as /_{C,#} Kahn argues that this environment can be more simply stated by making reference to the syllabic position “in the rhyme or coda.” Another argument for the inclusion of syllables in phonological theory is that syllable-based analyses shed light on the interrelatedness of multiple phonological phenomena. In Italian, for example, constraints on syllable structure are claimed to account for segmental phonotactics, the distribution of long and short vowels and consonants, and morphophonological alternations, such as the distribution of the definite article allomorphs il and lo (Bertinetto, 1981a, Borelli 2002, Chierchia, 1982, 1986, Davis, 1990, D'Imperio and Rosenthall, 1999, Marotta, 1985, 1988, 1993, Nespor and Vogel, 1978, 1979, 1986, Nespor, 1993, Renzi, 1976, 1988, Saltarelli, 1970, 1983, Vogel, 1977, 1982, 1994, Wiltshire and Maranzana, 1998). Constraints on syllable structure are claimed to capture the relationship between these seemingly disparate phenomena while linear segmental analyses cannot. On the other hand, recent work by Steriade (Steriade, 1997, 1999, 2001a, 2001b) has argued that consonantal phonotactics 2are best understood as string-based segmental conditions reflecting positional differences in the perceptibility of contrasts.