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This book presents a cross-linguistic study of the occurrence patterns and restrictions that clusters containing two obstruents exhibit in onset position. It is argued that s+Stop clusters are the best-formed of all obstruent clusters because they are unmarked along the manner and place dimensions. A typology of obstruent clusters is developed and phonotactic patterns from representative languages are analyzed within the framework of Optimality Theory.

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Frida Morelli received her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Maryland at College Park in 1999. She currently teaches at Connecticut College.

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