stray (adj.)

A term used in various models of NON-LINEAR PHONOLOGY, describing a unit (e.g. a SYLLABLE, a SEGMENT) which falls outside the conventions of a REPRESENTATION and which therefore needs to be handled in a special way. For example, in METRICAL PHONOLOGY a stray syllable produced by destressing needs to be adjoined to another NODE in the word TREE (stray syllable adjunction). Stray erasure is a procedure which DELETES SEGMENTS which cannot be incorporated into a WELL-FORMED syllable. It is particularly used in relation to CONSONANTS, where it accounts for certain types of syllable shortening and consonant deletion. For example, its application is suggested in cases like hymn/hymnal, where /mn/ is an unacceptable CODA sequence. However, an underlying representation of /him.n/ would result in an unsyllabified /n/, which (in one solution) could then be deleted by stray erasure.