The Syllable

Preliminary View

L220

Speech sounds are grouped into units called syllables.

1. All syllables have a peak 'P'.
2. The peak forms the core of the syllable.
3. The nucleus 'N' of the syllable includes the peak and an off-set 'Off' to the peak where the semivowels occur.
4. The nucleus may also contain an onset to the peak where a glide may occur.
5. The next higher unit is called the rhyme 'R'.
6. The rhyme contains the nucleus or peak of the syllable and the coda 'C' of the syllable, which is the final part of the syllable.
7. The syllable contains the rhyme and it may contain an onset 'O', which precedes the rhyme:

Syllable boundaries.

The rules for determining syllable boundaries should be applied in the following order.

From this order better generalizations can be made.

The ordering goes from the more specific to the less specific.

The rule is the default rule.

Because 'sigma' is not available to the internet, the '$' will be used to represent a syllable:

1. # --> #$ or $#. '#' = a word boundary.

All word boundaries are syllable boundaries. By convention, but the syllable boundary is placed inside the word boundary: # pat # --> #$ pat $#.

1. V(C)DlV --> V(C)D $ lT. 'D' = an alveolar stop, (C) = any immediately preceding consonant, 'l' = /l/.

If an alveolar stop and the phoneme /l/ occur between vowels, the alveolar stop goes with the first syllable, /l/ with the second syllable. Obviously, any consonants preceding the alveolar stop will go into the preceding syllable: # atlas # --> #$ at $ las $#, # antler # --> #$ ant $ ler $#.

1. 'VsC(C)V --> 'Vs $ C(C)V. " 'V " = A stressed vowel.

If /s/ follows a stressed vowel, /s/ is placed in the first syllable: # aster # --> #$ as $ ter $#.

1. VSC(C)'V --> V $ sC(C)V.

If /s/ precedes a stressed vowed, /s/ is placed in the following syllable: # astern # --> # $ a $ stern$#, # astride# --> #$ a $ stride $#.

1. VCV --> V $ CV.

If a single consonant occurs between two vowels, the vowel is placed in the second syllable: #stupid# --> #$ stu $ pid $#, # ajar # --> #$ a $ jar $#.

1. VCCV --> VC $ VC.

Otherwise, the syllable boundary is placed between a sequence of two consonants. This rule applies after the above rules have applied. There are three rules dealing with special sequences: an alveolar stop plus /s/, /sC/ following a stressed vowel, and /sC/ preceding a stressed vowel. If none of above rules apply, a single consonant goes in the second syllable, and a syllable boundary is inserted between two remaining consonants: # rapture # --> #$ rap $ ture $#, # reptilian # --> #$ rep $ ti $li # an $#.

There is a better approach than the above. Recall that we defined a syllable based on the sonority scale. If both consonants have the same sonority rank, they are equal and each is placed in a different syllable, because, as we shown above, the syllable is based on a scale of rising and falling sonority. Suppose that a syllable must begin with the least sonorous member in a string with two exceptions. The exceptions include 'D+/l/', where D ranks lower (7) than /l/ (4), and 's' plus a stop (plus a sonorant) plus a stressed vowel. Here /s/ (5) is lower than the following stop (7). One more constraint: outside of prothetic /s/, two obstruents cannot occur in initial position of a syllable.

This causes a problem for the structure of the syllable and it has been an extrasyllabic form. This is peculiar to Indo-European languages, though French and Spanish no longer permit /s/ before a consonant in syllable initial position. Even in Italian the combination is shaky. Let us not concern ourselves with extrasyllabicity here, and just note that prothetic /s/ is an exception and a problem.

With these two exceptions we can now predict syllable boundaries--the syllable begins with the least sonorous segment in a string.

Since two obstruents cannot be assigned to syllable initial position, /p/ is assigned to the first syllable, while the affricate is assigned to the second syllable.

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phonetics

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