linguistics1-3  Exercise 3: Possible and Impossible Words
=========================================================

Could it be English?

  blick   YES. It follows English phonotactics (bl- is an allowed onset, as
          in "black", and -ck is an allowed ending). It is an accidental gap:
          a possible word that happens not to exist.

  bnick   NO. English has no word beginning with /bn/. The sequence is not
          impossible to pronounce, since Polish and other languages allow
          similar clusters, but it breaks English rules.

  slon    YES. sl- is an allowed onset, as in "slow" and "slip".

  ngat    NO. English never begins a word with /ŋ/. The sound occurs only at
          the end of syllables ("sing") or in the middle ("singer").

  tlop    NO. English does not allow /tl/ at the start of a word.

  flirm   YES. fl- is an allowed onset, and -rm is an allowed ending
          ("farm", "firm").

Why a Japanese speaker might say "sukuriin" for "screen":

  Japanese syllables are mostly consonant + vowel (CV), with very few codas
  and no clusters like /skr/. To fit the English word into this shape, the
  speaker inserts vowels between the consonants: s-u, k-u, r-ii, n. The result
  [sukuriin] has the shape CV-CV-CVV-n, which is exactly what Japanese
  phonology permits.

This is the same process as English speakers inserting a vowel to say a
foreign name that starts with an unfamiliar cluster. The language's
phonotactics are applied to every word that enters it.