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The course material for this topic is divided into the following sub-
topics:-
1) Introduction
2) Syllable Structure
4) Summary
Additional Reading
Students should also read the following:-
Syllables:-
Open syllables are syllables that end in a vowel. The most common
open syllable is the CV syllable.
a) Open syllables
V "I" /ɑe/
CV "me" /miː/
CCV "spy" /spɑe/
CCCV "spray" /spræe/
b) Closed syllables
VC "am" /æm/
VCC "ant" /ænt/
VCCC "ants" /ænts/
CVC "man" /mæn/
CVCC "bond" /bɔnd/
CVCCC "bands" /bændz/
CVCCCC "sixths" /sɪksθs/
CCVC "brag" /bræɡ/
CCVCC "brags" /bræɡz/
CCVCCC "plants" /plænts/
CCCVC "spring" /sprɪŋ/
CCCVCC "springs" /sprɪŋz/
CCCVCCC "splints" /splɪnts/
It is clear from this list that English has a very flexible syllable
structure. There are languages at the opposite extreme that have
only CV syllables.
The rhyme has been further divided into the nucleus, which in the
vast majority of syllables is a vowel (the exceptions are syllabic
consonants) and the coda, which are any consonants following the
nucleus.
For example:
ɪ flip sylph
ʉ flew *
e fled self
eɪ flake *
əʉ flown *
ɔ flop golf
ɐ flood gulf
oː floor *
æ flack Ralph
æɔ flounce *
ɑe fly *
Phonotactic Constraints
We have seen in the preceding section that all languages build their
words from a finite set of phonemic units. It is also true that in all
languages there are constraints on the way in which these
phonemes can be arranged to form syllables. These constraints are
sometimes known as phonotactic or phoneme sequence constraints
and they severely limit the number of syllables that would be
theoretically possible if phonemes could be combined in an
unconstrained way. Some simple examples of phonotactic
constraints in English include: all three-consonant clusters at the
beginning of a word start with /s/ ('sprint', 'squire', 'stew' etc);
nasal consonants cannot occur as the second consonant in word-
initial consonant clusters unless the first consonant is /s/ (e.g.
there are no words in English than begin with /bm dn/ etc),
although this is certainly possible in other languages (e.g. German
which allows /kn/ in words like 'Knoten', meaning 'knot' - we can
see from the spelling that English used to allow this sequence as
well). Another important point about phonotactic constraints is that
they vary from language to language, as this example of English
and German has just shown.
In order to explain why listeners hear e.g. /pʁi/ as one syllable, but
/ʁpi/ as two, we need to appeal to what has been called the
syllable's sonority profile.
Sonority Profile
Sonority is an acoustic-perceptual term that depends on the ratio of
energy in the low to the high part of the spectrum, but it is also
closely linked with the extent to which the vocal tract is constricted.
In general terms, open vowels like [a] have the highest sonority
because the vocal tract is open and a large amount of acoustic
energy radiates from the vocal tract. At the other extreme,
voiceless oral stops have least sonority because there is no acoustic
energy during the closure in which the vocal tract is constricted.
i.e. oral stops are less sonorous than fricatives which are less
sonorous than nasals etc.
If they conform to the sonority profile, consonants sequences in
syllable onsets increase in sonority from left to right and consonant
sequences in syllable codas decrease in sonority from left to right.
From this we can predict which consonant sequences are more
probable for syllable onsets and codas.
less
probable probable Why? The syllables on the right have
/pla fni lju /lpa nfi jlu two sonority peaks -- and so it's much
lfpe/ more difficult to produce them so that
sma pfle/
they sound like one syllable…for
/alp ims ort/ /apl ism example:
otr/
The phonotactic restrictions in the coda in English are often (but not
always) a mirror-image of those in the onset (as you'd expect if the
syllable's legal phoneme sequences are strongly influenced by the
sonority profile). For example, English allows /pl/ in the onset
('play') and /lp/ in the coda ('help'); it allows /fr/ in the onset
('free') and, for rhotic dialects (e.g. Gen. American English), /rf/ in
the coda ('surf'). But there are also many permissible coda
sequences that are allowed whose mirror-image is disallowed in the
onset (e.g. /mp/ as in 'lamp', but no /pm/ in the onset).
Finally, there are far fewer restrictions in the rhyme -- these are to
do with the restrictions on nucleus-coda combinations. But as an
example of a rhyme constraint, there are no long vowel + /ŋ/
sequences (no words like 'seeng', 'flowng', although the
onomatopoeic 'boing!' is allowed).
Language-specific constraints
Languages differ in the kinds of onsets they allow:
When the third consonant is /w/ then the first two must be /sk/
Restrictions in the coda are often the mirror image of those in the
onset, eg pl ~ lp due to the sonority principle. However there are
many exceptions eg /nd/ in "end" but not /dn/.
Accidental gaps
Illegal Syllables
(i) Are there any words in English that can begin with /l/?
Yes, e.g. 'leaf', 'lot' etc.
Then assign /l/ to the second syllable.
(ii) Now move one slot to the left: are there any syllables that can
begin with /θl/?
No. Therefore, the syllable boundary goes after /θ/ i.e. the word
has two syllables, the first of which is /æθ/, and the second of
which is /liːt/.
Another example. Syllabify 'constrain' based on the maximum onset
principle. Here we have to decide how to break up the medial
consonantal cluster /nstr/.
(iii) Are there any words that can begin with /str/?
Yes, 'string', 'strike' etc.
(iv) Are there any words that can begin with /nstr/?
No. Therefore, syllabify the word as /kən.streɪn/, where the full
stop marks the syllable boundary.
Word Stress
In almost all languages, there is a variation in the relative
prominence of syllables. This prominence is a function of loudness,
pitch, and duration and it is often the change in pitch along with the
other factors that is most important. The prominence of syllables is
referred to as stress.
In each word, one of the feet is stronger than the other feet. Its
head is more prominent because it is assigned intonational tone or
extra length. This strong syllable has primary word stress and the
heads of the other feet have secondary stress.
There are more than a few words in English that begin with a weak
syllable. Since feet are left-dominant, and since every foot has to
begin with a strong syllable, this will mean that and word-initial
weak syllable is unfooted (not associated with a foot). Examples of
such initial weak syllables occur in e.g. the first syllable of
'America', 'medicinal', 'pedestrian').
antidisestablishmentarianism
5 feet, 12 syllables
ab-lish- is-
an-ti dis-est a-ri-an
ment m
s w s w s w w sww s w
Having said this, its important to note that the stress pattern of
natural spoken English is not based on words at all. Phrases like
"my dog, the chair, love it", pattern like single words with just one
prominent syllable. There is no difference in stress between pairs of
words like "arise, a rise" or "ago, a go". Words that begin with
unstressed syllables like "above" may have initial unstressed
syllable allocated to a preceding foot. eg /IT was a /SIGN from
a/BOVE
Quantity-sensitive Feet
In some languages, the choice of primary stress is related to the
number and type of segments in the syllable rhyme and this is
called quantity-sensitivity. Syllables are considered to be either
heavy or light depending on the segmental constituents of the
rhyme.
All other types of syllables - that is (C)VC syllables which are not
word-final, (C)VCC syllables, (C)V: syllables where V: is any other
vowel or diphthong not listed above, or (C)V:C syllables all count as
heavy.
Morphological Factors
The suffixes -ion, -ity, -ic, -ify, -ible, -igible, -ish, require stress to
be on the preceding syllable
Example 1: "Turramurra"
(1) Begin by identifying whether there are any syllables that are
schwa vowels, or which can reduce to schwa, because these have to
be metrically weak: for this word, this applies to the second and
fourth syllables. Confirm that the other syllables cannot reduce to
schwa. If this is the case, they are likely to be metrically strong. We
therefore have four syllables which are s w s w.
(4) If there is more than one syllable, one of the feet has to marked
strong, and the other(s) as weak. The foot that is marked strong is
the one that dominates the primary stressed syllable (the third
syllable in this example). So the first foot is weak. We therefore
arrive at:
(5) Join up the feet to form word tree. If there is an initial weak
syllable (doesn't apply in this case, but it would in e.g. 'asparagus')
join that to the word level. We therefore have the following with the
transcription included:
Example 2: "Pedestrian"
Draw a prosodic word tree for 'pedestrian'. Following through the
above five steps.
(1) 'pedestrian' = w s w w
(2)
(3)
(i.e. a ternary foot)
Words are made up of feet. A word can have one or more feet. If a
word has a single foot its strong will have primary word stress in
citation form. If a word has more than one foot, the strong syllable
of one of the feet will have primary stress and the strong syllable of
the other feet will have secondary stress. The choice of syllable for
stress attachment will depend on the individual rules of the
language but some languages such as English are quantity sensitive
in that the number of elements in the rhyme help to determine
which syllable will be stressed. If a rhyme has a short vowel +
consonant or a long vowel the rhyme is said to be heavy. If the
rhyme has just a short vowel, the rhyme is said to be light. In
English non-final syllables with heavy rhymes prefer to be strong.
However, the origin of a word and also its morphology are
important factors in determining stress placement in English.