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lecture 2

The document discusses the division of syllables in English, particularly focusing on strong and weak syllables. It explains that weak syllables have shorter, less intense vowels and may even consist of syllabic consonants, while strong syllables are characterized by stressed vowels. Additionally, it highlights the significance of the schwa vowel, which is commonly found in weak syllables.

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5 views

lecture 2

The document discusses the division of syllables in English, particularly focusing on strong and weak syllables. It explains that weak syllables have shorter, less intense vowels and may even consist of syllabic consonants, while strong syllables are characterized by stressed vowels. Additionally, it highlights the significance of the schwa vowel, which is commonly found in weak syllables.

Uploaded by

Taha
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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We have to decide on the lesser of two evils here, and the preferable

solution is to divide the word as kar.i on the grounds that in the many
rhotic accents of English this division would be the natural one to make.
One further possible solution should be mentioned: 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.
Strong and weak syllables 9
?”What do we mean by “strong” and “weak
When we compare weak syllables with strong syllables, we find the
vowel in a weak syllable tends to be shorter, of lower intensity
(loudness) and different in quality (the property that makes
one VOWEL sound different from another. For example, in the
word ‘data’ the second syllable, which is weak, is
shorter than the first, is less loud and has a vowel that cannot occur in
strong syllables. In a word like ‘bottle’ the weak
second syllable contains no vowel at all, but consists entirely of the
consonant l. We call this a syllabic consonant.
There are other ways of characterising strong and weak
syllables. We could describe them partly in terms of stress
(by saying, for example, that strong syllables are stressed
and weak syllables unstressed.
The most important thing to note at present is that any
strong syllable will have as its peak one of the vowel
phonemes

If the vowel is one of , then the


strong syllable will always have a coda as well.
Weak syllables, on the other hand, as they are defined here,
can only have one of a very small number of possible peaks.
At the end of a word, we may have a weak syllable ending
with a vowel (i.e. with no coda):
9.2 The 9 vowel (“schwa”)
The most frequently occurring vowel in English is a, which is
always associated with weak syllables. In quality it is mid (i.e.
halfway between close and open) and central (i.e. halfway
between front and back). It is generally described as lax - that
is, not articulated with much energy.

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