In syllable reduction, the vowel of a nonfinal syllable deletes (… CV.CV …), resulting in the creation of a consonant cluster (… C.CV …) where the first consonant of such a cluster can be said to be phonetically simplified with respect to the original consonant. Ye’kwana presents some unique features of syllable reduction: (i) attested thus far only at morpheme boundaries, alternation of reducing syllables occurs here within a single morpheme; (ii) reduction is conditioned by what could be analyzed as vowel initial suffixes. This latter phenomenon deviates from the patterns found in other Cariban languages and appears to violate explanations given in terms of syllable structure constraints. I discuss the problems in generating a synchronic phonological analysis to model the resultant apparent counterexamples, and then I demonstrate that this apparent violation is historically consistent with the overall pattern, but that a late sound change has eliminated the onset consonant from the suffix.

中文翻译：

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Ye'kwana 中的音节缩减：形态化音位学

在音节缩减中，非最终音节的元音删除 (... CV.CV ...)，导致创建辅音簇 (... C.CV ...)，其中此类簇的第一个辅音可以说是在语音上简化为尊重原辅音。Ye'kwana 提出了音节缩减的一些独特特征：(i) 迄今为止仅在词素边界处证明，这里在单个词素内发生缩减音节的交替；(ii) 归约取决于可以分析为元音初始后缀的内容。后一种现象与在其他加勒比语言中发现的模式不同，似乎违反了在音节结构约束方面给出的解释。我讨论了生成同步语音分析来模拟由此产生的明显反例的问题，