Complex onsets in regional varieties of Bangla

This paper intends to illustrate an analysis of the treatment of the complex onsets at the word-initial position in some regional varieties of Bangla or Bengali in the framework of Optimality Theory (McCarthy and Prince, 1993a, McCarthy and Prince, 1993b, Prince and McCarthy, 1996, Prince and Smolensky, 1993). In a stratified lexicon system, borrowed words belong to SB (Sanskrit Borrowings) and OB (Other Borrowings) strata. NB (Native Bangla) does not allow any complex onset at the word-initial position. The borrowed words (SB and OB) with complex onset are retained intact in the standard colloquial Bangla (SCB). But, some non-standard regional varieties (NSCB), which are spoken in many parts of West Bengal and Bangladesh, register vowel-insertions in several SB and OB words with word-initial consonant cluster. In most likely cases, the tendency is to break the word-initial cluster by inserting a vowel in between the consonants in the cluster. An Optimality-Theoretic (OT) analysis of this phenomenon is offered in this article with the help of a stratification strategy for the Bangla lexicon.