A Study of Syllable Structure in Sarhaddi Balochi Dialect of Granchin

The study of syllable structure enjoys a specific significance in non-linear phonological studies. The present research, in the form of fieldwork, investigates the syllable structure in Sarhaddi Balochi dialect of Granchin based on the theory of CV phonology as a post-generative theory. It also examines the phonotactic distribution of consonants in initial and final clusters as well as the effect of the nucleus vowel of the syllable on the selection of dissimilar consonant clusters of the coda. The linguistic data has been extracted from the linguistic corpus collected in the Granchin district of Khash in Sistan and Baluchestan province. The data collection and compilation of the linguistic corpus were carried out based on the purposeful recording of speech through interviewing and recording free speech of consultants. The language consultants included 5 females and 5 males living in Granchin, who were illiterate and of different ages, between 60-80 years. The research findings show that the syllable structure of Sarhaddi Balochi Dialect of Granchin consists of one syllabic element, that is, nucleus which is preceded by maximally three consonants and followed by two consonants. In addition, the findings denote that phonotactic restrictions govern the distribution of consonants in initial and final clusters. Likewise, the type of the nucleus vowel of the syllable plays a role in selecting the cluster of the coda.