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our observations is that the lower the degree of syllable complexity in a language, the
likelier the occurrence, preservation and assimilation of vowel clusters at clitic
boundaries is. This would be true for the languages with the lowest degree of syllable
complexity within our language sample: Maori and Yoruba. Since these languages
behave like mora-/syllable-timed languages with respect to this phonotactic parameter
of rhythm, we may attribute the emergence, preservation and assimilation of vowel
clusters in cliticization to this rhythmic type. Overall, we have to admit that the
rhythm-based typology proposed in this study has little to say on this topic.
4.2.3. Intervocalic consonants, syllable complexity and length contrasts
Intervocalic consonants at host-clitic boundaries may result from the procliticization of
consonant-final clitics to vowel-initial hosts and the encliticization of consonant-initial
clitics the vowel-final hosts (see 2.2.1.1.2.), or from the procliticization of vowel-final
clitics to consonant-initial hosts and the encliticization of vowel-initial clitics to
consonant-final hosts (see 2.2.1.2.2.). Due to the high number of constellations which
can lead to intervocalic consonants at the clitic boundary, all languages in our sample
exhibit such junctural VCV sequences.
The most natural treatment of such host-clitic boundaries is the preservation of
their structure. All languages retain at least some of the intervocalic consonants which
emerge in cliticization. In other cases, these contexts block segmental rules that would
apply in the absence of the clitic. In Tamil, the deletion of word-final /�/ is blocked by
the presence of a vowel-initial enclitic, such as the focus enclitic um ‘they, too’ in
ava�ka�=um (Asher 1982: 239). Intervocalic position of nasal consonants blocks the
nasalization of the vowel preceding the nasal consonant in Slave, e.g. in hejin=íle ‘(s)he
does not sing’. Here, a number of neutralization rules are also blocked in this
phonological context (Rice 1989c: 114ff.). In Nigerian Pidgin, /r/ is deleted in
word-final position. However, if the 3 rd person object clitic am is attached to a word
ending in /r/, the host will surface with its final consonant: hyar=am [hyá.ràm] ‘hear it’
(Faraclas 1989: 539). In Finnish, rules of vowel raising, vowel shortening and vowel
deletion are blocked by the presence of a clitic, therefore the structure of such junctural
VCV sequence is preserved (Nevis 1984: 175f.).
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