Republic of lraq

Ministry of Higher Education

& Scientific Research

Al-Mustansiriya Universiry

College of arts

Phonetics and phonology

The Syllable
By
MA. Candidate
Zahraa Salim
Supervised by
Prof. Rafida Alhilou
2023-2024
 The Syllable a unit of speech consisting minimally of one vowel and maximally
of a vowel preceded by a consonant or consonant cluster and followed by a
consonant or consonant cluster. For example, the English word introductions
consists of four syllables: in-tro-duc-tions (Richards and Schmidt, 2012: 576).
Syllabification is the process of dividing a word up into syllables. For example,
locomotive can be divided up into four syllables: lo-co-motive.The syllabification
of the spelling of a word can differ from the syllabification of its pronunciation.

For example, in styl-is-tics /staiclistiks/ the first syllable of the spelling is styl,
but the first syllable of the pronunciation is /stai-/(Richards and Schmidt, 2012:
575). According to Crystal, syllable is a unit of pronunciation typically larger than a
single sound and smaller than a word. A word may be pronounced ‘syllable at a
time’, as in ne-ver-the-less, and a good dictionary will indicate where these
syllabic divisions occur in writing, thus providing information about how a word
may be hyphenated.

The most basic kind of syllable is the CV (Consonant-Vowel) syllable (e.g. [ba]).
This is the kind of syllable attested in the babbling stage of child development.
Some languages contain only CV syllables, (Carr, 2008:171). Syllables are claimed
to be the most basic unit in speech. Every language has syllables, and babies learn
to produce syllables before they can manage to say a word of their native
language. When a person has a speech disorder, their speech will still display
syllabic organization, and slips of the tongue also show that syllabic regularity
tends to be preserved even in “faulty” speech, (Roach, 2009:85).

Types of Syllables 1. Monosyllabic A word consisting of one syllable. E.g. Or 2.

Disyllabic A word consisting of two syllables. E.g. garden 3. Polysyllabic A word
consisting of three or more syllables, alternately named ‘multi-syllable’. E.g.
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis Constituents of the syllable
Syllables have internal structure that can be divided into parts. These parts are
onset and rhyme; within rhyme, you can find nucleus and coda. It is important to
point out that not all syllables have all these parts; the smallest possible syllable
contains a nucleus only. Simply, onset means the beginning sounds of the syllable;
the ones preceding the nucleus. These are always consonants in English.
 Syllables which contain no coda consonants are open syllables, as in the English
word bee (/bi:/). Syllables which contain one or more coda consonants are closed
syllables, as in the English word but. Syllables that lack an onset consonant are
said to have an empty onset, as in the English word eye (/ai/). Empty onsets are
said to be involved in the process of resyllabification, whereby a consonant which
might otherwise occupy a coda position comes to occupy a following onset
position, as in the sequence green eye, syllabified as /gri:.nai/ (where the full stop
represents a syllable boundary), (Carr ,2008:171).

The syllable might be defined both phonetically and phonologically as follows:

Phonetically: syllables in relation to the way we produce them and the way they
sound are usually described as consisting of a center which has little or no
obstruction to airflow and which sounds comparatively loud; before and after the
center, there will be greater obstruction to airflow and/or less loud (Roach, 2009:
56) Examples: • A minimum syllable: One vowel in isolation preceded and
followed by silence. The word are, /a:/. • A syllable with onset, a vowel preceded
by one or more consonants. The word Key, /ki:/. • A syllable with coda, a
consonant or more after the vowel, but no onset. The word Ease, /i:z/. • A syllable
with onset and coda. The word, Fill, /fil/. Phonologically: Looking at the syllable
from this point of view means considering the possible combinations of English
phonemes.

In other words knows as, Phonotactics. Phonotactics is the arrangements of

the distinctive sound units (PHONEMEs) in a language. The consonant groups
(CONSONANT CLUSTERs) /spr/ and /str/ can occur at the beginning of a word, as
in sprout, strain, but they cannot occur at the end of a word. (Richards & Schmidt:
2010). It is rather problematic to identify the clear-cut line denoting the border of
the syllables when we have diphthong in the word. It shows in the matter of
deciding where the division can occur between syllables as in the word: going
/gәuiŋ/. Deciding whether the vowel /u/ in the diphthong /әu/ belongs to the first
or the second syllable is usually the problem. The same problem with the word:
extra /ekstrә/, the sound /s/ is in the middle between the /k/ and /t/. All English
speakers would agree that the word has two syllables but the place of the
possible division is what makes it problematic. It might be uttered as follows: /e-
kstrә/, /ek-strә/, /eks-trә/, /ekst-rә/, /ekstr-ә/. The structure of English Syllable
Technically, the basic elements of the syllable are the onset (one or more
consonants) followed by the rhyme. The rhyme (sometimes written as “rime”)
consists of a vowel, which is treated as the nucleus, plus any following
consonant(s), described as the coda.

Syllables like me, to or no have an onset and a nucleus, but no coda. They are
known as open syllables. When a coda is present, as in the syllable sup, cup,at or
hat, they are called closed syllables. It is important to study syllables according to
the relationship between them and their distributions. Onset may consist of: 1.
One consonant e.g. book /buk/ 2. Two consonants or consonant cluster begin
with /s/ or /p/ as in slip /slip/ and play /plei/. It might be classified as: • Two
consonants: s+ other consonant e.g. stop /stɒp/, the sound /s/ is called pre-initial
and the sound /t/ is considered as initial. • Consonant other than /s/ e.g. play
/plei/, the /p/ is initial and the /l/ is post initial. 3. Onset with three consonants
(CCC): Onset of three consonants usually begins with /s/ sound, which is called a
pre-initial as in spring /sprinŋ/. Onset + Center + Coda: • Coda with one C e.g. seat
/si:t/, the C is called final consonant. • Coda with two consonants CC: a. Pre-final
consonant: usually with /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /l/ and /s/, e.g. gold /gold/, seats /si:ts/. b.
Final consonants: Other than the above sounds, they will be final + post final e.g.
month /mʌnθ/, aks /æks/. It is always with suffix /s/, /z/, /t/, /d/, and /θ/. • Coda
with three consonants CCC: a. Pre-final + final + post-final, months /m ʌ n θ s/. b.
Final + post-final1 + post-final 2, texts /tekst/, fifths /fifθs/, fixed /fikst/. • Coda
with four consonants CCCC a. Pre-final + final + post-final1 + post-final2,
twelfths /twelfθs/, prompts /prompts/. b. Final + post-final1 + post-final2 + post-
final3, sixths /siksθs/. If the sounds /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /l/and /s/ occur as first
consonant in the coda they are always pre-final.

Syllable weight The major distinction drawn between syllable types found in
languages has been between open syllables and closed syllables. An open syllable
ends in a vowel while a closed syllable ends in a consonant. In some languages
syllables typically end in a vowel, i.e., they are open. That is the situation in
languages like Japanese. In other languages, Like French and English, syllables can
end in a consonant. However, even in those languages, which allow closed
syllables, there is often a clear preference for open ones.

There is a second distinction denoting the light and heavy syllables. A light
syllable contains only a short vowel in the rhyme, with no coda, as in the first
syllable of potato, report, about. Although the first two cases have onsets, and
the third does not, all these initial syllables are still light, because onsets are
entirely irrelevant to the calculation of syllable weight. If a syllable has a complex
rhyme, then it is heavy; and complexity can be achieved in two different ways.

First, a heavy syllable may have a short vowel, but one or more coda
consonants, as in bet, best. Second, it may have a branching nucleus, consisting of
a long vowel or diphthong; such a syllable will be heavy whether it also has a filled
coda, as in beast, bite, or not, as in bee, by. Syllable weight is a major factor in
determining the position of stress in a word: essentially, no stressed syllable in
English may be light. This means that no lexical word, or full word of English can
consist only of a short vowel alone, with or without an onset, since such words,
including nouns, verbs and adjectives, must be able to bear stress: thus, there are
words such as be, say, loss, but not *[b‫[׀‬,]* sε], *[lɒ]. On the other hand, function
words like the indefinite article a, or the pronunciation [tә] for the preposition to,
which are part of the grammatical structure of sentences and are
characteristically unstressed, can be light. In cases where these do attract stress,
they have special pronunciations [e‫[ ׀‬and [tu:], where the vowel is long, the
nucleus branches, and the syllable is therefore heavy. (McMahon 2002) Strong
and Weak Syllables Syllables may sound stronger or weaker according to the tone
they bear.

It is almost certainly true that in all languages, some syllables are in some
sense stronger than other syllables; these are syllables that have the potential to
be described as stressed. It is also probably true that the difference between
strong and weak syllable is of some linguistic importance in every language,
however, strong and weak syllables do not occur at random. Weak Syllable The
syllable becomes weak when we find the following four cases: 1. The vowel /ә/
(schwa), as being half way between front and back. e.g. better /betә/, open
/әʊpәn/. 2. A close front unrounded vowel in the general area of /i:/ and /ɪ/, it is
neither long /i:/ nor short /ɪ/. The symbol used is /i/, e.g. happy /hæpi/. 3. A close
rounded vowel in the general area of /u:/ and /ʊ/. The symbol used is /u/, e.g.
thank you /θænk ju/ 4. A syllabic consonant after another consonant. These
consonants are: /ḷ/, /ṃ/, /ṇ/, /ṛ/ and /ŋ/, e.g. bottle /botḷ/, threaten /θretṇ/,
history /histṛi/, and thicken /θɪkŋ/. Syllabic Consonants There are syllables in
which no vowel is found and even then, they are considered weak syllables. In
these cases, a consonant, either /ḷ/, /ṃ/, /ṇ/, /ŋ/, or /ṛ/, stands as the center of
the syllable instead of the vowel. It is usual to indicate that a consonant is syllabic
by means of small vertical mark under the sound, for example: cattle / kætḷ /
bottle /botḷ/ able /eɪbḷ/ little /lɪtḷ/ happen can be pronounced as /hæpәn/ or
/hæpṇ/ or /hæpṃ/ button /bʌtṇ/ broken /brәʊkŋ/ syllabic /r/ occurs in words
like: history /hɪstṛi/ Hungary /hʌŋṛi/ It is unusual to find two syllabic consonants
together but sometimes a speaker may pronounce the word “national” as
/næʃṇḷ/, “literal” /lɪtṛḷ/, “visionary” /vɪӡṇṛi/ and the word “veteran” /vetṛṇ/. In
colloquial English, it is often more or less a matter of arbitrary choice, how one
transcribes such words.
 References

1. Carr, A Glossary of Phonology, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2008.

2. Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 6 thed, Oxford: Blackwell

publishing Ltd, 2008.

3. Mcmahon, An Introduction to English Phonology. Edinburgh, Edinburgh

University Press, 2002.

4. Richards and Schmidt, Longman Dictionary of LANGUAGE TEACHING AND

APPLIED LINGUISTICS, London, Pearson Education Limited, 3rd ed, 2012.

5. Roach, A little Encyclopedia of Phonetics, 2009

6. Roach, English Phonetics and Phonology, Cambridge, Cambridge University

Press, 4th ed, 2009.

7. Yule, The study of Language, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2010.