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Strong and Weak Syllables

The document discusses strong and weak syllables from a phonetic perspective. Weak syllables typically have reduced vowels like schwa, or close front or back vowels. They may also contain syllabic consonants. Specifically: 1) Weak syllables often contain the reduced vowel schwa, spelled with letters like "a" and "ar". 2) Other reduced vowels in weak syllables include close front vowels like "i" and close back vowels like "u". 3) Syllabic consonants are also common in weak syllables, especially syllabic "l" after alveolar consonants like in "cattle", or syllabic "l" after non-

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Naney Ans
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2K views

Strong and Weak Syllables

The document discusses strong and weak syllables from a phonetic perspective. Weak syllables typically have reduced vowels like schwa, or close front or back vowels. They may also contain syllabic consonants. Specifically: 1) Weak syllables often contain the reduced vowel schwa, spelled with letters like "a" and "ar". 2) Other reduced vowels in weak syllables include close front vowels like "i" and close back vowels like "u". 3) Syllabic consonants are also common in weak syllables, especially syllabic "l" after alveolar consonants like in "cattle", or syllabic "l" after non-

Uploaded by

Naney Ans
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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STRONG AND WEAK SYLLABLE

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY
STRONG AND WEAK SYLLABLES?

In the present context, we are using these terms to refer to phonetic characteristics of syllables. We could describe them partly in terms of stress (by saying, for example, that strong syllables are stressed and weak syllables unstressed.)

WEAK SYLLABLES WILL HAVE..


Four

types of center:

i) the vowel (" schwa") ii) a close front unrounded vowel in the general area of i: and I iii) a close back rounded vowel in the general area of u: and iv) a syllabic consonant

THE VOWEL ( " SCHWA" )


i)Spelt with " a '; strong pronuciation would be - attend / tend / - character /kr kt / - barracks / br ks / ii) Spelt with " ar" ;strong pronuciation would have : - particular / p tIkj l / - molar /m l (r)/ -monarchy/m n ki/ iii) Adjectival endings spelt " ate" ; strong pronunciation would be eI - intimate / IntIm t / - accurate/kj r t / - desolate/des l t/ There are exceptions to this. For example " private is usually /praIvIt /

iv) Spelt with " o " ; strong pronuciation would have - tomorrow /t m r / - potato /p teIt / - carrot / kr t / v) Spelt with " or " ; strong pronunciation would have : - forget / f get / - ambassador / mbs d / - opportunity / p tju:nI tI/

CLOSE FRONT

AND

CLOSE BACK VOWELS

Two other vowels are commonly found in weak syllables, one close front i ( in the general area of i: and i) and the other close back rounded u( in the general region of u: and ). In strong syllables it is easy to distinguish i: from i ,u: from , but in weak syllables the difference is not so clear . Examples; Possible pronuciation easy busy i:zi: bIzi: i:zI bIzI
Using Weak Syllable

i:zi

bIzi

CLOSE FRONT

ROUNDED VOWEL

In most other cases of weak syllables containing a close front unrounded vowel we can assign the vowel to the phoneme, as in the first syllable of resist/rIzIst/ inane / IneIn /, enough /In f/ and the middle syllable of incident and the final syllable of swimming / swImI / , liquid / lIkwId / , Optic / ptIk/. It can be seen that this vowel is most often represented in spelling by the letters i and e .

Weak syllables with close back rounded vowel are not so common.Their most frequent occurrence is in the words you , into, to, do,When they are unstressed and are not immediately preceding a consonant, through and who in all positions where they are unstressed. We also find weak syllable where the vowel tends to sound more like the vowel of the book;usually this is found with a preceding j glide, as in evacuation / IvkjueI n /. An example of such a vowel without a preceding j is Influenza / Infll enza /

SYLLABIC CONSONANTS
1) Syllabic l with alveolar consonant preceding - cattle / ktl / - bottle / b tl / - muddle /m dl/ 2) With non-alveolar consonant preceding - couple /k pl/ - trouble/ tr bl / - knuckle /n

kl/

3) Such words usually lose their final letter e when a suffix is beginning with a vowel is attached, but the l usually remains syllabic. Thus: - Bottle-bottling /b tlI / - Mudlle-muddling / m dlI /

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