University of Basrah

College of Education for Human Sciences

English Phonetics and Phonology
Second Stage

Lecture 2 The syllable

Asst. Prof. Dr. Alaa Abdul-Imam Abdul-Zahras

 The syllable
► One could decide whether a particular sound was a vowel or a consonant on
phonetic grounds (in relation to how much they obstructed the airflow)
► or on phonological grounds (vowels and consonants having different
distributions).
► The syllable may be defined both phonetically and phonologically.
► Phonetically (i.e. in relation to the way we produce them and the way they sound).
► syllables are usually described as consisting of a centre which has little or no
obstruction to airflow and which sounds comparatively loud; before and after this
centre (i.e. at the beginning and end of the syllable), there will be greater obstruction
to airflow and/or less loud sound.
 Examples

► What we will call a minimum syllable is a single vowel in isolation

(e.g. the words ‘are’ a:, ‘or’ o:, ‘err’ 3:). These are preceded and followed by
silence. Isolated sounds such as m, which we sometimes produce to indicate
agreement, or ʃ, to ask for silence, must also be regarded as syllables.
ii) Some syllables have an onset - that is, instead of silence, they have one or
more consonants preceding the centre of the syllable:
‘bar’ ba: ‘key’ ki: ‘more’ mo:
iii) Syllables may have no onset but have a coda - that is, they end with one
or more consonants: ‘am’ æm ‘ought’ o:t ‘ease’ i:z
iv) Some syllables have both onset and coda: ‘ran’ ræn ‘sat’ sæt ‘fill’ fil
► Looking at them from the phonological point of view is quite different. What
this involves is looking at the possible combinations of English phonemes; the
study of the possible phoneme combinations of a language is called
phonotactics.
► It is simplest to start by looking at what can occur in initial position - in other
words, what can occur at the beginning of the first word when we begin to
speak after a pause. We find that the word can begin with a vowel, or with one,
two or three consonants.
► No word begins with more than three consonants. In the same way, we can
look at how a word ends when it is the last word spoken before a pause; it can
end with a vowel, or with one, two, three or (in a small number of cases) four
consonants.
 The structure o f the English syllable

❑ A syllable has a zero onset if it begins with a vowel (any vowel may occur,
though u is rare).
❑ If the syllable begins with one consonant, that initial consonant may be any
consonant phoneme except ŋ; 3 is rare.
❑ Two or more consonants together are called a consonant cluster. Initial
two-consonant clusters are of two sorts in English. One sort is composed of s
followed by one of a small set of consonants; examples of such clusters are
found in words such as ‘sting’ stiŋ), ‘sway’ sweı, ‘smoke’ sməuk. The s in these
clusters is called the pre-initial consonant and the other consonant (t, w, m in
the above examples) the initial consonant.
► The other sort begins with one of a set of about fifteen consonants, followed by
one of the set 1, r, w, j as in, for example, ‘play’ pleı, ‘try’ traı, ‘quick’ kwık, ‘few’
fju:.
► The first consonant of these clusters is called the initial consonant and the second
the post-initial. There are some restrictions on which consonants can occur
together. See Table 3.
► When we look at three-consonant clusters we can recognise a clear relationship
between them and the two sorts of two-consonant cluster described above;
examples of three-consonant initial clusters are: ‘split’ splıt, ‘stream’ stri:m,
‘square’ skweə. The s is the pre-initial consonant, the p, t, k that follow s in the
three example words are the initial consonant and the 1, r, w are post-initial. In
fact, the number of possible initial three-consonant clusters is quite small.
 Final Consonant Clusters

► Here we find the possibility of up to four consonants at the end of a word.

► If there is no final consonant we say that there is a zero coda.
► When there is one consonant only, this is called the final consonant. Any
consonant may be a final consonant except h, w, j.
► The consonant r is a special case: it doesn’t occur as a final consonant in BBC
pronunciation, but there are many rhotic accents of English (see Section 7.3) in
which syllables may end with this consonant.
 Two sorts of two-consonant final cluster

► A final consonant preceded by a pre-final consonant and the other a final consonant
followed by a post-final consonant.
► The pre-final consonants form a small set: m, n, ŋ, 1, s as in ‘bump’ bɅmp, ‘bent’ bent,
‘bank’ bæŋk, ‘belt’ belt, ‘ask’ α:sk.
► The post-final consonants also form a small set: s, z, t, d, Ɵ as in ‘bets’ bets, ‘beds’
bedz, ‘backed’ bækt, ‘bagged’ bægd, ‘eighth’ eitƟ . These post-final consonants can
often be identified as separate morphemes (although not always - ‘axe’ æks, for
example, is a single morpheme and its final s has no separate meaning).
► The release of the first plosive of a plosive-plus-plosive cluster such as the g (of gd) in
bægd or the k (of k t) in bækt is usually without plosion and is therefore practically
inaudible.
► The vowel is the centre of the syllable. However, there is a special case, that of
syllabic consonants.
► we do not analyse the word ‘students’ stju:dnts as consisting of one syllable with the
three-consonant cluster stj for its onset and a four-consonant final cluster dnts. The
word contains two syllables, with the second syllable ending with the cluster nts; in
other words, we treat the word as though there was a vowel between d and n, although a
vowel only occurs here in very slow, careful pronunciation.
► Much present-day work in phonology makes use of a rather more refined analysis of the
syllable in which the vowel and the coda are known as the rhyme. Speaking of
rhyming English verse you will see that the rhyming works by matching just that part of
the last syllable of a line.
► The rhyme is divided into the peak (normally the vowel) and the coda (this is optional:
the rhyme may have no coda, as in a word like ‘me’). The syllable may also have an
onset, but this is not obligatory. The structure is thus the following:
 Syllable division
► It is not always easy to decide on the division of a word into syllables. Most English
speakers feel that the word ‘morning’ mϽ:nıŋ) consists of two syllables, but we need a
way of deciding whether the division into syllables should be mϽ: and nıŋ), or mϽ:n and
ıŋ).
► A more difficult case is the word ‘extra’ ekstrə. One problem is that by some definitions
the s in the middle, between k and t, could be counted as a syllable, which most English
speakers would reject. They feel that the word has two syllables. However, the more
controversial issue relates to where the two syllables are to be divided; the possibilities
are (using the symbol . to signify a syllable boundary):
 The Maximal Onsets Principle

► This principle (Maximal Onsets Principle) states that where two syllables are to be
divided, any consonants between them should be attached to the right-hand
syllable, not the left, as far as possible.
► In the first example, ‘morning’ would thus be divided as mϽ: nıŋ. If we just followed
this rule, we would have to divide ‘extra’ as (i) e.kstrə, but we know that an English
syllable cannot begin with kstr. The rule must therefore state that consonants are
assigned to the right-hand syllable as far as possible within the restrictions governing
syllable onsets and codas. This means that we must reject (i) e.kstrə because of its
impossible onset, and (v) ekstr.ə because of its impossible coda. We then have to choose
between (ii), (iii) and (iv). The maximal onsets rule makes us choose (ii).
► How should we divide words like ‘better’ betə?
► The maximal onsets principle tells us to put the t on the right-hand syllable, giving
be.tə, but that means that the first syllable is analysed as be. However, we never find
isolated syllables ending with one of the vowels ı, e, æ, Ʌ , o, u, so this division is not
possible. The maximal onsets principle must therefore also be modified to allow a
consonant to be assigned to the left syllable if that prevents one of the vowels ı, e, æ, Ʌ ,
o, u from occurring at the end of a syllable. We can then analyse the word as bet .ə,
which seems more satisfactory.
► There are words like ‘carry’ kæri which still give us problems: if we divide the word as
kæ.ri, we get a syllable-final æ, but if we divide it as kær.i we have a syllable-final r,
and both of these are non-occurring in BBC pronunciation. The preferable solution is to
divide the word as kær.i on the grounds that in the many rhotic accents of English this
division would be the natural one to make
 Ambisyllabic Consonants

► When one consonant stands between vowels and it is difficult to assign the consonant to
one syllable or the other - as in ‘better’ and ‘carry’ - we could say that the consonant
belongs to both syllables. The term used by phonologists for a consonant in this
situation is ambisyllabic.
Written Exercise