A Constraint-Based Analysis of Coda in Kelantan Dialect

The uniqueness of the Kelantanese Malay dialect (DK) has been attracting a lot of optimality phonologists to study the dialect. This study aims to explain the aspect of Kelantan dialect phonotactics involving the syllabic coda position. Foregoing analysis has managed to display and describe some significant data for this study. Therefore, the same data will be used in this study. However, there is still confusion and conflicting views on the sound segment that are allowed to appear in the syllable coda position and its explanation based on the set of constraint hierarchy. This study has successfully resolved this problem by adopting the latest grammatical theory, that is, Optimality Theory propounded by Prince, Smolensky and McCarthy in 1993. This Optimality theory is still the main theory in linguistics until now. Based on the analysis, only the placeless features are allowed to occupy the position of Kelantan Dialect syllabic coda, which is [, h, N]. In the Optimality theory, this phonotactic constraint is called CODACONDITION. In the Kelantan Dialect, CODACONDITION constraint dominated the other constraints. Ranking of the constraint set produced is CODACONDITION DEP MAX IDENT (Pl).