In polysyllabic segments, the composition of medial clusters is a reflection of morpheme structure constraints as they apply to initial and final groups of syllables. Also, medial clusters ideally overlap, i.e., have simultaneous membership in both the preceding and following syllable segments. (DB)

Argues that there is phonological gemination in English based on distribution of vowel qualities in medial and final syllables. The analysis, cast in terms of optimality theory, has implications in several domains: (1) ambisyllabicity is not the right way to capture aspiration and flapping; (2) languages in which stress depends on vowel quality…

Abbreviated version of this paper was read under the title Nuclear Accent and Intonation Rules of English'' at the 1970 summer meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, in Columbus, Ohio, and an interim version appeared in UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics'' (1971). (VM)