LL 219 INTRODUCTORY ENGLISH PHONETICS AND

PHONOLOGY

TOPIC 4:
WORD PRONUNCIATION

4.1 Syllables in English words: what is a syllable, syllable as an important unit

4.2 Syllable structure and syllable weight
4.3 Syllabification and resyllabification
What is a syllable?
▪ According to the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics (2007), a syllable is a
phonological unit consisting of a vowel or other unit that can be produced in
isolation, either alone or accompanied by one or more less sonorous units.

▪ Similarly, Carr (2008) defines a syllable as a unit of phonological organization

whose central component is a nucleus, which is normally a vowel, and which
may be preceded or followed by consonants.

▪ Generally, a syllable can simply be described as a unit of pronunciation.

▪ Words in human languages can be pronounced on the basis of syllables.

Syllable as an important unit (Brown, 2014: 61)
▪ Everyone, regardless of their native language and its writing system, seems
to be able to identify how many syllables words contain.

▪ Some differences between languages can only be stated in terms of the

syllable and its structure.

▪ These differences are likely to lead to difficulties for foreign learners in

pronouncing certain English combinations.
• Literacy experts are agreed that an awareness of the syllables in a word, the
sounds that make up the syllables, and of phenomena such as alliteration
and rhyme, are essential for efficient spellers of English.
Syllable structure
▪ Traditionally, the syllable is often said to be subdivided into an onset and a rhyme.

▪ The onset refers to any consonants preceding the nucleus; the rhyme, on the other hand,
refers to a combination of the nucleus and any consonants following it.

▪ In some words, a rhyme can function as a syllable on its own (act, on, up)

▪ The rhyme is said to be further subdivided into a nucleus and a coda; but it may also be
composed of only the nucleus, without the coda.

▪ The nucleus refers to a vowel or syllabic consonant functioning as the central part of any
syllable (Brown, 2014); and every syllable must have a nucleus (vowel or syllabic cons.)
Syllable structure (cont.)
▪ According to Carr (2008), syllabic consonants are consonants that occupy
the nucleus of a syllable; transcribed with a subscript diacritic under the
consonant symbol.

▪ We normally get syllabic consonants when we omit a schwa sound in rapid

pronunciation or connected speech (able, bottom, cotton).

▪ The term coda refers to any consonants following the nucleus.

▪ For instance, in the syllable /mQn/ (man) consonant /m/ functions as an

onset, /Qn/ is the rhyme, whereby /Q/ is the nucleus and /n/ a coda.
Representing the internal structure of the syllable
▪ Hierarchically (hierarchical representation or tree diagram)
σ

O(nset) R(hyme)

N(ucleus) C(oda)

m Q n
• Linearly (linear representation): man /mQn/ CVC
Syllable structure in English monosyllabic words
▪ English has a large number of monosyllabic words.

▪ All monosyllabic words in English have a single vowel.

▪ By examining the legal consonant + vowel sequences in English

monosyllabic words, we can get a good idea of what types of syllable
structure are legal in English.
Open syllables
▪ V: air, are, eye,

• CV me, see, tie

• CCV grey, slay, spy, sty

• CCCV spray, stray

Closed syllables
• VC: arm, isle, up VCC ant, isles, opt

• VCCC ants, opts CVC course, man, tile

• CVCC bond, takes, tiles CVCCC bands, links

• CVCCCC sixths, texts CCVC brag, speed, speak, style

• CCVCC brags, plant, speaks CCVCCC plants, prints

• CCCVC straight, street CCCVCC springs, streets, strength

• CCCVCCC splints, strengths

Summary of syllable structure
▪ Generally, consonants preceding the vowel in the English syllable should not exceed 3
and those following the vowel should not exceed 4 – (C) (C) (C) V (C) (C) (C) (C).

▪ Similarly, Brown (2014) argues that we can represent this by the formula C0-3 V C0-4
which is more complex than for most languages (p. 62).

▪ It should be noted, however, that there are nevertheless considerable constraints on

which phoneme sequences are permissible in English syllables.

▪ Such constraints are called phonotactic constraints and these constraints are very
language-specific (see Brown, 2014: 63-64, for more details on what he calls syllable
structure rules)
Syllable weight
▪ Syllable weight is the notion that is based on the distinction between heavy and light syllables.

▪ Heavy syllables have more weight, or quantity, in the rhyme, in the form of more segments, or

longer segments, than do light syllables.

▪ In many languages, a syllable containing a long vowel or a diphthong in the nucleus will count as

heavy (supreme, today), whereas a syllable containing a short vowel will count as light (the, to).

▪ Coda consonants often contribute to syllable weight, so that a syllable containing a short vowel

followed by (a) coda consonant(s) will count as heavy (manager).

Syllabification
▪ Syllabification is a process whereby segments are slotted into syllable
positions (Carr, 2008).

▪ It is a term which refers to the division of a word into syllables

(Crystal, 2008).

▪ Principles such as Maximal Onset are said to guide the syllabification

of segments. (com.pa.ny, de.vel.op.ment, ear.ring)
Syllable boundaries (Brown, 2014: 65)
• While speakers can usually tell how many syllables a word has, there
may be confusion as to where one syllable ends and the next begins,
e.g., whether a consonant between two vowels belongs with the first
or the second syllable.

• Various principles have been proposed to handle this; reasonably

uncontroversial ones are the following:

• Syllable boundaries cannot divide the affricates /tS dZ/.

• Syllable divisions cannot create clusters which are otherwise
impermissible.
• Syllable boundaries occur at morpheme boundaries, e.g. race-track.
Syllable boundaries (cont.)
• However, that still leaves a number of more controversial examples,
and some other principles (which are incompatible with each other)
have been proposed:

• The Maximal Onset Principle: intervocalic consonants go with the

following vowel wherever possible: appraise /ə.preIz/

• Stressed syllables cannot end with a short vowel (that is, they must
have a final consonant) and two consonants are split between the
two syllables (com.pa.ny).
Resyllabification
▪ Resyllabification refers to a reanalysis which alters the location of syllable
boundaries (Crystal, 2008).

▪ Strictly speaking, resyllabification is a phonological process whereby a

consonant which might other occupy a coda position comes to occupy the
following onset position, as in an adder, green/red eyes, etc.

▪ Syllables which lack an onset consonant are said to have an empty onset.

▪ Empty onsets are said to be involved in the process of resyllabification (Carr,

2008).