Universality and Typology in Phonotactic Constraints: Evidence from Amharic and English

This article aims to analyze the phonotactic constraints between Amharic and English in line with contrastive and error analysis theories. The study employed a descriptive survey design. Data were collected from sixty-one University of Gondar third-year English major students. They underwent production and discrimination testing. Consonant clusters and Final -C vs. Final -Ci word pairs were provided for the discriminating test, and the students pronounced each English word embedded in a sentence throughout the production test. Every minimally targeted term was embedded in complete sentences. The results show the students performed better at discrimination than production. Three-element consonant clusters were problematic in any position. This can be explained by the two languages’ dissimilar phonotactics. The difficulty with initial clusters was found to be greater than that with final clusters. Inadvertently, the epenthetic vowel /ɨ/ was added at the onset and coda of some English syllables to break up the impermissible English consonant clusters. Many students were unable to recognize the ending /-nz/ in chains; they mispronounced it as Chinese. Amharic has a CV as its typical syllable pattern, but some students mispronounced the final -Ci syllables of lucky /lʌkɪ/ as /lʌk/ and difficulty /dɪfɪkəltɪ/ as /dɪfɪkəlt/.