Sonority Sequencing Principle in Persian

In this study the distribution of sonority in syllable structure of Persian language is investigated. According to Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP) sonority is minimum at the Onset, increases to maximum at the nucleus and decreases to last consonant of Coda. The results show that with some exceptions Persian language generally obeys SSP. The results also show that sonorant consonants are occurred more than they were expected no matter where their positions where. Non-sonorants such as plosives occur as expected in pre-vocal contexts which supports the idea that Perceptual Cue Salience plays an important role in shaping sonority sequencing in syllables. The results support the Licensing by Cue hypothesis.