Onset clusters, syllable structure and syllabification in Maltese

This chapter aims to describe syllable structure and the phonotactic constraints on onset consonants in Standard Maltese. The current work is based on the phonetic and phonological description of Maltese in Azzopardi (1981) and Borg & Azzopardi- Alexander (1997). The phonological account provided here, however, is grounded in an Onset-Rhyme model. Furthermore, the phonotactics of Maltese are described in terms of sonority. After establishing the nature of onset consonants in Maltese, we address the process of syllabification in Maltese.