Research on the MinWd Constraint for Chinese Loanwords：Based on Phrasal Stress Perspective

This paper argues that the traditional MinWd Constraint in phonology should be broken into three sub-constraints, namely MinN, MinV and MinA, according to the parts of speech of the word concerned, because different word category tends to contain different number of syllables in response to the different degrees of stress they commonly bear; e.g. an object NP tends to attract more stress than a head V. The three sub-constraints are claimed to combine into a complex constraint in a Boolean conjunction relation, on the basis of analysis of some transliterated loanwords used in Chinese.