BASIC SYLLABLE STRUCTURES OF PARIT SULONG JAVANESE

Javanese is a language spoken by Javanese community particularly in the central of Java, Indonesia. Javanese speakers in Malaysia are those who migrated to Malaya and built their settlement here since the 16th century. This research intends to explain the basic syllable structure in Javanese language in Parit Sulong, Johor. Five native speakers of Javanese aged between 60 and 80 years were interviewed. This research uses qualitative approach and applies fieldwork methods such as word lists and conversation or story telling with the native speakers. The Javanese language data were analysed based on phonological theory, named Optimality theory. This theory was proposed by Prince and Smolensky (2004) to examine the constituent for the syllable structure of Javanese language. From the data observation, five syllable structures of Javanese were identified, which are V, CV, VC, CVC and CCV. These syllable structures show that this language allows its syllable structure to begin with a vowel or not to have an onset that is V and VC. A part from that, CCV syllable structure shows that this language does not prohibit the presence of consonant clusters. The analysis of Javanese finds that the hierarchical constraints of the basic syllable structure for Javanese spoken in Parit Sulong are, ALIGN-LEFT *NUCLEICOMPLEX ONSET DEP-IO MAX-IO *CODA. To conclude, Javanese spoken in Parit Sulong has its own syllable structure. This finding provides added value to the previous studies on Javanese in line with the composition of phonological patterns in a new data collected from Javanese.