Content

 Introduction
 Onset-Rhyme Theory
 Rhyme Structure
 Syllabic prependices and appendices
 Conclusion
 Introduction
ˈˈOnsets-rhymes are technical terms used to describe
phonological units of a spoken syllable. Phonetically syllables
“are usually described as consisting of a center which has little
or no obstruction to airflow and which sounds comparatively
loud; before and after that center (…) there will be greater
obstruction to airflow and/or less loud sound” (Roach,
2000:70). 
An onset is that part of the syllable that precedes the vowel of
the syllable. Whereas a rhyme is that part of a syllable which
consist of its vowel and any consonant sound that comes with
it. As per the “Onset-Rhyme theory”, the consonant occurring
before the vowel are called onset whereas those coming after it
are called coda and the grouping of “peak and coda together is
called the rhyme of the syllable”. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Onset-Rhyme Theory
In onset-rhyme theory, the syllable is analyzed as consisting of two immediate
constituents: 
a) The onset, containing any consonant preceding the vowel, and 
b) The rhyme, containing the vowel and whatever follows it: 
Figure 1:

σ
Onset Rhyme

t r  
æ m p
Various arguments have been put forward for the division of the syllables into
two constituents as discussed below: 
Firstly, although the name of the phonological constituent ‘rhyme’ is derived
from the term traditionally used in verse, we cannot equate the two concepts:
i. The elements that rhyme in the traditional sense are not necessarily just
part of the syllable, but may involve something larger. 
ii. The rhyming element is not just the rhyme of the syllable as we are also
dealing with the identity between the rhyme of the stress and the following
un-stress syllable. 
Although the two notion of rhyme are different, the rhyming traditions
indicate relevance of the onset-rhyme division concerning the stressed
syllable. 
More evidence of the validity of the division of onset-rhyme is being found
in the apparent independence of the two constituents. Assuming that a
syllable can be seen as a sequence of onset and rhyme, which has been
claimed to the constraints on the co-occurrence of the segment holdings
between onset and rhyme are lesser severe than those holding within each of
the two constituents. This gives out a list of well- formed onsets and rhymes
that combines freely to form well-formed syllables, thus seeing the onsets
and rhymes as autonomous units with their own constraints on their internal
structure. 
 The combination of onsets and rhymes is not entirely free, which is evident
by a number of restrictions on the well-form of the English syllables as the
type given below by Clements and Keyser (1983: 20-1):
  Figures 2: 
a. Stop + /w/ clusters are excluded.
b.  English has virtually no word consisting of a consonant, a short
vowel, and the consonant again.

The second of the two constrains means that words such as *spop or *skick
are apparently ruled out, even though same sequences without the initial ‘s’
are well formed in English.
Nevertheless, although the approach was rejected due to its restrictions, it is
clear that the relation between the vowel and consonant is closer then that
between the vowel and the preceding consonants. Restrictions of the types
given in figure 2 are more common within the onset or rhyme than between
two constituents.
Another argument favoring the identification of the rhyme as a constituent
involves stress assignment. Like in English and Dutch like the many other
languages, the location of stress depends on the structure of the syllable,
where certain syllables reject stress even though it is expected. In order to
determine whether a syllable is stress-attracting or not, the number and type
of consonants in the onset are entirely irrelevant, as shown below in the
figure 3:
Figure 3:
a. arena [ə]σ[ˈriː]σ[nə]σ
verbena [vər]σ[ˈbiː]σ[nə]σ
angina [æn]σ[ˈʤaɪ]σ[nə]
b. America [ə] σ[ˈmɛ] σ[rɪ] σ[kə] σ
orchestra [ˈͻː] σ[kə] σ[steə] σ
cholesterol [kə]σ[ˈlɛ]σ[stə]σ[rɒl]σ
c. agenda [ə] σ[ˈʤɛn] σ[də] σ
appendix [ə] σ[ˈpɛn] σ[dɪks] σ
veranda [və]σ[ˈræn]σ[də]σ

The distinction is a matter of rhyme structure alone, where the identity and
number of onset consonant plays no role on whether the syllable attracts or
rejects stress whereby implying that the rhyme must be a unit which can be
addressed by the phonological rules.
Similar evidences can also be found in the behavior of the diminutive suffix in
the Dutch, particularly when it follows a noun ending in a sonorant consonant. In
this the form of the suffix depends on the nature of the final consonant and the
vowel preceding it, as shown in the figure below:
Figure 4:
a) duimpje DUIM+DIM ‘thumb’
maantjee MAAN+DIM ‘moon’
bijltje BUL+DIM ‘axe’
boertje BOER+DIM ‘farmer’
b) kammetje KAM+DIM ‘comb’
mannetje MAN+DIM ‘man’
belletje BEL+DIM ‘bell’
barretje BAR+DIM ‘bar’
The forms given below contains a long vowel or diphthong followed by a
sonorant consonant, and take a diminutive [tje]/[pje], while those in (4b)
contains a short vowel followed by a sonorant and take a diminutive [ətjə]. Thus
it shapes the rhyme as a whole which determines the choice of the appropriate
form of the suffix. However, the onset plays no role as shown in the figure
below:
Figure 5:
a) aaltje AAL+DIM ‘eel’
paaltje PAAL+DIM ‘pole’
staaltje STAAL+DIM ‘specimen’
maaltje MAAL+DIM ‘meal’
baaltje BAAL+DIM ‘bale’
kraaltje KRAAL+DIM ‘bead’
b) arretje AR+DIM ‘sleigh’
palletje PAL+DIM ‘catch’
stalletje STAL+DIM ‘stable’
malletje MAL+DIM ‘mould’
balletje BAL+DIM ‘ball’
knalletje KNAL+DIM ‘bang’
Now we consider a further level of constituent structure within the onset-rhyme
view of the syllable that is the internal structure of the rhyme.

Rhyme structure
In figure (1) the rhyme was represented as a flat constituent. But in the case of
syllable, arguments can be found considering the rhyme having two constituents,
the nucleus and the coda as shown in the figure below:
Figure 6:
rhyme

nucleus coda
We have already seen that some syllables may be stress-attracting, while some
are not relevant to this process and this appears to be a function of the content of
the rhyme as the onset is not relevant to such process. The evidence of these
forms suggests that the penultimate of the forms arena and agenda which are
stressed as opposed to the penultimate syllable of America which reject stress.
And so from now on we will consider long vowels to be geminates as they
occupy two positions in the rhyme and so they have exactly the same structure as
diphthongs, which behaving in the same way as the stress rules in English. This
makes the distinction between heavy and light syllables a simple matter of the
number of segments in the rhyme in English in which heavy syllables contain
two segments in the rhyme while light syllable contains only one as shown in the
figure below:
Figure 7:
a) heavy
rhyme

a ɪ
angina

b) heavy

rhyme

i i
 arena

c) heavy
rhyme

ɛ n

agenda

d) light

rhyme

America

In the above figure the penultimate is given in bold.

The data from English does not offer clues of any kind to prove as to whether
the rhyme should have an internal structure in figure (6), so all that seems
relevant is whether the rhyme node has more than one daughter. But, however
not all languages draw the same way of distinction between heavy and light
syllables. And in some languages, number of segments in the rhyme as well as
the type of segment plays a major role.
For example, in the Selkup, a West Siberian language a two segment rhyme
consisting of a long vowel is heavy whereas if the two segment rhyme consist of
a short vowel followed by a consonant then it is termed as light vowel, as

Figure 8:

a) kɨˈpͻͻ ‘tiny’

quˈmooqɪ ‘two human beings’

 b) ˈamɨrna ‘eats’

ˈuucɨkkak ‘I am working’
Stress falls on the rightmost heavy syllable in Selkup, or the initial syllable if
there is no heavy syllable. Thus in the above figure (8a), the syllable [pͻͻ] and
[moo], functions as heavy and stressed syllable whereas, the penultimate
syllable in figure (8b), [mɨr] and [cɨk], functions as light even-though their
rhymes contain two segments. And so a rhyme containing VV is heavy in Selkup
like it is in English, but unlike English, one containing VC is light. Thus evidence
such as this suggest that in figure (8b) the penultimate syllable is light because
the vowel and consonant belong to different constituents within the rhyme and
the relevance is the establishment of the distinction between the heavy and the
light syllables in this language which is the number of segments in the nucleus
and not in the rhyme as a whole.

The distinction between the two languages with respect to the syllable weight
is given below in the figure (9), where we refer to the type of language
instantiated in English as a rhyme-weight language and those of Selkup as
nucleus-weight language (cf. Hayes 1995):

Figure 9:

a) In rhyme-weight languages the nucleus plays no role in the

distinction between heavy and light syllables: if the rhyme as a
whole contains more than one element the syllable is heavy.
b) In nucleus-weight languages the structure of the nucleus node
determines syllable weight: branching nuclei are heavy; non
branching nuclei are light.

In rhyme-weight languages we find the possibilities in the figure (10):

 Rhyme-weight language

a) light
rhyme

nucleus

V
b) heavy

rhyme

nucleus

V V

c) heavy

rhyme

nucleus coda

V C
While nucleus-weight languages have those in figure (11):

 Figure 11:

Nucleus-weight languages

a) light

rhyme

nucleus

b) light

rhyme

nucleus coda

c) heavyV C
rhyme

nucleus

v v
 These are some of the most common types even though
other possibilities are also found. The language of the Dutch for
example appears to represent a third type, in which weight
depends solely on whether or not a syllable is closed, for example
on the presence of a syllable-final consonant, irrespective of
whether the vowel is long or short, as is shown by the data below.

 Figure 12:

a) kolibri [ˈkoː]σ[liː]σ[briː]σ ‘humming bird’

pagina [ˈpaː]σ[Ȣiː]σ[naː]σ ‘page’

b) agenda [aː]σ[ˈȢɛn]σ[daː]σ ‘dairy’

proportie [proː]σ[ˈpor]σ[siː]σ ‘proportion’

In Dutch the VC rhyme is apparently treated as heavy, like in English however

unlike either English or Selkup a VV rhyme can be skipped. We might refer to
this as coda language, in which the branching of the nucleus is apparently
irrelevant as in figure (13):

Coda-languages

a) light

rhyme

nucleus

V
 b) light

rhyme

nucleus

v v
c) heavy

rhyme

nucleus coda

V C

We have been considering rhymes with at most two segments but as we look
into it would appear that there are also rhymes having more than two
segments. This may be due to the fact that they have two consonant or may be
because they have a complex nucleus and a consonant in the coda or both. The
structures in the figure below might be appropriate for such rhymes:

Figure 14:

a)
rhyme
 nucleus coda

V C C
b)
rhyme

nucleus coda

V V C

c) rhyme

nucleus coda

V V C C

Here the four segment rhymes as well as three segments are very restricted
and they tend to occur in the word-final rather than non-final syllables. This
relates to the fact that the constraints on the peripheral syllables seem to differ
in various ways from those on medial syllables.

Syllabic prependices and appendices

Through the syllabic behavior of the peripheral consonants, we identify the
class. The major class and manner feature appears to provide the information
relevant to the status of a segment within the syllable; thus the particular well-
informed sequences of a segment within the syllables are determined by their
relative sonority. In this way within the onset, less sonorant consonants
precede the more sonorant consonants within the coda and vise versa. The
most sonorant segment in the syllable forms the nucleus. Therefore the
sonorant ‘slope’ within the syllable rises as the flow goes from the initial
consonant to the nucleus ant then falls until the end is meet in the syllable.
Thus syllables like tramp /træmp/ in English and plank/plaŋk/ in Dutch are
‘canonical’ as the order of segments obey the sonority hierarchy and thus the
elements within the syllable are subject to the sonority sequencing
generalization.

From the examples we have seen so far we see the appearance of the
branching onset, nuclei and the codas and thus the co-occurrence of branching
constituents seems to be possible. Although it is not difficult to find words
which appear to allow more than just two consonants in the onset and coda at
the peripheral position in English and Dutch, interestingly we violate the
sonority sequencing generalization; in which we find more sonorous
consonants preceding the less sonorous consonants at the beginning of the
word and vice versa.

Conclusion
Thus, from the above discussion of the “Onset-Rhyme Theory”, we get a
generalized idea of the technique and skills put into development of a word,
which in turn forms in a sentence and then languages of various kinds around
the world. This also provides us information about the word structure and the
different arguments put forward in the “Onset-Rhyme Theory” by providing
proofs with the support from various examples in different languages such as
the English and Dutch. It also provides us the arguments but forward in the
rhyme structure about the weight of the syllables by providing examples from
languages such as English and Selkup. And it also throws light on the syllabic
prependices and appendices shining light on sonority with examples from
English and Dutch syllables.
 Biblography
 The Phonological Structure of Words: An Introduction
Colin J. Ewen, Harry van der Hulst. 2001