THE SYLLABLE
Outline
I. The syllable as an integral part of the
word.
II. The syllable formation theories.
III. Types of syllables in English.
IV. Basic rules of syllabification in
English.
I. The syllable as an integral part of
the word.
• The central element in the language
mechanism is a word.
• In phonetics, the syllable is a group of
sounds that are pronounced together
[Wells, 2000:758].
• The syllable is one or more speech
sounds forming a single uninterrupted unit
of utterance which may be a commonly
recognized subdivision of a word.
1. The syllable as an integral
part of the word.
• The problem of the syllabic structure of
words has two aspects:
1) syllable formation
2) syllable division.
1. The syllable as an integral part of
the word.
• Articulatorily, the syllable is the minimal
articulatory unit of the utterance.
• Auditorily, the syllable is the smallest unit of
perception: the listener identifies the whole of
the syllable and after that the sounds which it
contains.
• Phonologically it is a structural unit which
consists of a sequence of one or some
phonemes of a language in numbers and
arrangements permitted by the given language.
The syllable can be considered as both a
phonetic and a phonological unit.
• As a phonetic • As a phonological
unit the syllable is unit the syllable
defined in can be defined and
articulatory, described only with
auditory and reference to the
acoustic terms with structure of one
universal particular
application for all language.
languages.
1. The syllable as an integral part of
the word.
Phonologically the syllable performs three
functions
1) The 2) The
constitutive distinctive
function function
3) The
identificatory
function
1. The constitutive function
Syllables constitute words, rhythmic groups and
utterances through the combination of their
stress, duration, pitch.
Two aspects of this function can be emphasized.
On the one hand, the syllable is a unit in
which segmental phonemes are realized.
On the other hand within a syllable
prosodic features of speech are also
realized.
1. The constitutive function
Thus syllables may be stressed and unstressed,
high or low, rising or falling, long or short. All
these prosodic features are significant for
constituting the stress-pattern of a word and
rhythmic structures of an utterance.
The syllable is not a sum of sounds: It is
a specific minimal structure of both
phonemic and prosodic features.
In the scale of language units the syllable occupies the
position between the phoneme and the word.
2) The distinctive
function
• The difference in the place of a syllabic
boundary differentiates the meanings of the
words and phrases: e.g. a 'name - an aim; kids
'kin - kid 'skin; my 'train - might 'rain. Therefore
words are actually differentiated by the syllable
as one articulatory and perceptible unit.
• Due to the distinctive importance of syllable
division, the syllabic boundary is regarded as a
separate phonological unit called the juncture
phoneme.
3) The identificatory function
• The listener can understand the exact
meaning of the utterance only when the
correct syllabic boundary is perceived:
• peace talks – pea stalks.
II. The syllable formation theories.
• What are the rules of syllable
formation and division?
• The Expiratory theory
• The Sonority theory
• Theory of muscular tension
• The Loudness theory
The expiratory (chest pulse or pressure)
theory by R.H. Stetson (1951).
Raymond Herbert Stetson (1872-1950) was
Professor of Psychology at Oberlin College.
• Expiration – pulsating process
• Each syllable – a single expiration
• It is claimed that chest pulses determine the number of
syllables uttered (Stetson,) But simple calculations
prove that more than 10 syllables are uttered with one
chest-pulse (expiration).
The sonority theory (1929)
• Danish linguist with
French as his principal
subject and Latin and
English as his minor
subjects, Professor of
English Language and
Literature at
Copenhagen University
OTTO JESPERSEN 1893-1925.
(1860-1943)
The sonority theory (1929)
• The Sonority theory helps • But the sonority
establish the number of theory fails to explain
syllables in a word. But
the mechanism of
it’s difficult to find the
syllable boundary using syllable formation and
this syllable as it doesn’t division.
explain the mechanism of For example:
syllable division. Syllables • extra [ek-stre]
are marked by peaks of
prominence (sonority). or [ek-tre].
The sonority theory (1929)
Sudden
A N
D
S
The theory of muscular tension
by L.V. Shcherba (1945)
The syllable is formed by the greatest
degree of muscular tension of the
articulatory organs and probably
loudness of pronunciation. But the
exact determination of the syllabic
boundary is also a moot point in this
theory.
• The characteristic feature of
English is monosyllabism: it
contains between four five
(1880 –1944) Russian linguist thousand monosyllabic words.
specializing in phonetics and
phonology.
The loudness theory by N.I.
Zhinkin
The arc of loudness
the pharyngeal passage
the narrowing of the passage →
Thus, 1) a syllable – the arc of loudness which
correlates with the arc of articulatory effort.
2) A syllable – a phonetic unit pronounced by one
articulatory effort accompanied by one muscular
contraction, which results acoustically and auditory
in one uninterrupted arc of loudness.
• Unlike the previous theories, which analysed either a
production or a perception level, his theory took
into account both these levels.
• He experimentally proved that the organ
immediately responsible for the variation of
loudness is the pharynx. So according to this
theory, the syllable can be regarded as the arc of
loudness on the perception level, which corresponds to
the arc of articulatory effort on the speech
production level, since variations in loudness are due to
the work of all the speech mechanisms.
III.Types of syllable
Syllables can be also designated 2) by the position in relation to
1) by the position in the word: stress:
• from the beginning: PRETONIC
INITIAL TONIC
MEDIAL POSTTONIC
FINAL • (Any syllable which is not tonic
Or is ATONIC/ненаголошений).
e.g.
• from the end:
ULTIMATE tre - men - dous
PENULTIMATE initial medial final
antepenultimate penultimate ultimate
ANTEPENULTIMATE
pretonic tonic posttonic
III.Types of syllables
(suggested by G.P.Torsuyev)
1. V – open, uncovered Structurally, the
(I, our) commonest types of the
syllable in English are
2. CV- open, covered
e.g. (see, my) VC, CVC.
3. VC- uncovered,
closed CV – is considered to be
e.g. (it, art) the universal structure.
CV syllabic types
4. CVC - covered, constitute more than half
closed of all structural types in
e.g. (cup, mean) Russian and Ukrainian.
Consonant Clusters in the Syllables
English has a wide variety of syllable types:
CVC pot, sad, caught, thought, good
CCVC speak, stone, still, blown, bleed
CCVCC stand, blend, blind, stoned
CCCVCC streets, strange, splashed,
stressed.
CVCCC fixed, battled
CVCCCC texts
VCCCCC emblems /emblmz/
Syllables
Other languages don’t have such a large
number of syllable structures.
Hebrew
• CV
• CVC
• CVCC (only at end of word)
Syllables
Hawaiian Indonesian
•V •V
• CV • VC
• CV
• CVC
IV. Basic rules of
syllabification in English.
In English the syllable is
formed:
1) by any vowel alone or in The English sonorants /w/,
combination with one or more /j/ , /r/ are never syllabic as
consonants - not more than 3 they are always syllable-
preceding and not more than initial and function as
4 following it, e.g. are /a:/,
we /wi:/, it /it/, sixths /siksGs/.
consonants, because they
occur only before vowels:
2) by a word final sonorants SVC structure type: with,
/n/, /1/, /m/ immediately yes (jes), right
preceded by a consonant: e.g. • Thus vowels and sonorants are
-rhythm / /, syllable-forming elements and every
garden /'ga:.d3n/ word, phrase or sentence has as
many syllables as it has syllabic
[Examples are taken from: EPD elements.
1997].
