Syllabic structure of English words (lecture 6)

1.

SYLLABIC STRUCTURE
OF ENGLISH WORDS
Lecture 6

2.

Outline
1. The notion of the syllable
2. Theories of the syllable
3. Structure of the English and Russian
Syllable
4. Functional Characteristics of the Syllable

3.

The notion of the syllable
The syllable is the smallest pronounceable unit capable of forming
morphemes, words and phrases.
V.A. Vassilyev
J.C. Wells
The syllable may be defined as
one or more speech-sounds
forming a single uninterrupted
unit of utterance, which may be a
whole word, e.g. man, I or part of
it, e.g. morning.
The syllable is one or more speech
sounds forming a single
uninterrupted unit of utterance
which may be a commonly
recognized subdivision of a word
or the whole of a word.
A meaningful language unit has two aspects: syllable formation and
syllable division which form a dialectal unity.

4.

Four levels of the syllable
Acoustic
studied with the help of intonograph and
spectrograph;
electroacoustic analysis made it possible to
formulate some rules of syllable division
Auditory
the smallest unit of perception: the listener
identifies the whole of the syllable and only
after that he identifies the sounds contained
Articulatory
is the minimal articulatory unit of the
utterance
Phonological
is a structural unit which consists of a
sequence of one or some
phonemes of a language in numbers and
arrangements permitted by the given
language

5.

Theories of the syllable
The expiratory, or chest pulse, or pressure theory by R.H.
Stetson
Each syllable should correspond to a single expiration so
that the number of the syllables in an utterance is
determined by the number of expirations made in the
production of the utterance
The sonority theory / the prominence theory by O.
Jespersen
The syllable is treated as the combination of a more
sonorous sound with a less sonorous one. All the sounds
with the greatest degree of sonority (vowels and
sonorants) are at the peak of the syllable, by which the
syllable may be marked as a unit, because the rest of the
sounds surrounding the peak cling to it.

6.

Theories of the syllable
The theory of muscular tension by L.V. Shcherba
In speaking, muscular tension impulses follow one
another. Each impulse has its strongest point – the peak
of prominence – and its weakest point– the valley of
prominence. Valleys of prominence correspond to points
of syllabic division.
The loudness theory by N.I. Zhinkin
The syllable could be thought of as the arc of loudness
which correlates with the arc of articulatory effort on the
speech production level since variations in loudness are
due to the work of all the speech mechanisms:

7.

Two points of view on the syllable
1. The syllable to be a purely articulatory unit which lacks any
functional value as the boundaries of the syllable do not
always coincide with those of the morphemes.
2. The syllable can reveal some linguistic function:
a) a syllable is a chain of phonemes of varying length;
b) a syllable is constructed on the basis of contrast of its
constituents (which is usually of vowel-consonant type);
c) the nucleus of a syllable is a vowel, the presence of
consonants is optional; there are no languages in which
vowels are not used as syllable nuclei, however, there are
languages in which this function is performed by consonants;
d) the distribution of phonemes in the syllabic structure
follows the rules which are specific enough for a particular
language.

8.

Syllable formation
In English a syllable is formed
(1) by any vowel (monophthong or diphthong) alone or in
combination with one or more consonants and
(2) by a word-final sonorant (lateral (/l/) or nasal (/m,
n/) immediately preceded by a consonant,
e.g. (1) are [ɑ:], he [hi:], it [ıt], man [mæn].
(2) table ['teıbl], rhyzm ['rıðm], garden ['gɑ:dn].
The English sonorants [w], [j] are never syllabic as they
are always syllable-initial.

9.

Syllable division
1. syllable boundary is found wherever there is a word
boundary, and also coincides with the morphological
boundary between elements in a compound:
displace [,dis 'pleis], become [bi 'kʌm], countless ['kaunt
ləs]
2. consonants are syllabified with whichever of the two
adjacent vowels is more strongly stressed, e.g. agenda
[ə 'ʤəndə].
If they are both unstressed, it goes with the leftward one:
e.g. cinema ['sin əmə], delicious [di 'liʃəs], deliberate [di
'lib ər ət].

10.

Syllable division
3. the English diphthongs are unisyllabic, they make one
vowel phoneme, while the so-called triphthongs are
disyllabic, because they consist of a diphthong + the
neutral vowel/schwa:
table ['tei-bl], science ['sai-əns], flower ['flau-ə]
4. The English affricates [ʧ], [ʤ] cannot be split: catching
['kæʧ iŋ]

11.

Structure of the English and Russian Syllable

12.

Structure of the English and Russian Syllable
There are different restrictions on the possible
consonant clusters in English and in Russian:
• In English final clusters are much more complex than
initial ones (expressing different grammatical
meanings: plurality, tense, number)
e.g. texts, mixed, glimpsed.
• In Russian the structure of the syllable is characterised
by more complex and numerous initial clusters
(grammatical prefixes)
e.g. вскрикнуть, всплакнуть.
Syllables of the initial CC type constitute more than 50
combinations in English (except affricates and double
consonants). Syllables of the initial CC type in Russian
constitute 236 combinations (affricates and double
consonants including), e.g. speak, вчера.

13.

Structure of the English and Russian Syllable
• Syllables of the initial CCC type constitute 14
combinations in English and 97 in Russian, e.g. street,
взлом, взмах.
• A number of combinations of the initial CCCC type
constitute syllables only in Russian, there are no
similar combinations in English, e.g. взгляд,
вздрогнуть.
• The clusters /mh, sr, sʃ, fs, hr, stl/ never occur initially
in English, but they do occur in Russian: мхи, сразу,
сшить, все, хруст, стлать.
• The clusters /gr, str/ can occur only initially, /tn, dn,
stl/ occur only finally, compare with the Russian: дни,
стлать. The cluster (тн) does not occur in Russian
finally or initially.

14.

Structure of the English and Russian Syllable
• In Russian СГ structural types of syllables are more
common than ГС type.
• СГ syllabic types constitute more than half of all the
structural types in Russian.
• СГ together with ССГ types constitute 85 %.
• In the Russian texts open syllables occur 3 times more
often than closed ones.
• In English the most frequent pattern in CVC.

15.

Functional Characteristics of the Syllable
1. Constitutive function - syllables constitute words,
phrases and sentences through the combination of their
prosodic features: loudness – stress, pitch – tone,
duration – length and tempo. All these prosodic features
constitute the stress pattern of words, tonal and
rhythmic structure of an utterance.

16.

Functional Characteristics of the Syllable
2. Distinctive function - in the English language there are
many combinations distinguished from each other by
means of the difference in the place of the syllabic
boundary: a name - an aim/ə'neım/ - /ən'eım/, ice
cream - I scream/'aıskri:m/ - /aı'skri:m/, we loan - we’ll
own: /wi: 'ləʊn/ - /wıl'əʊn/.
Close juncture (conjuncture) occurs between sounds
within one syllable, e.g. a name, I scream.
Open juncture (disjuncture, or internal open juncture)
occurs between two syllables: an aim, ice cream.

17.

Functional Characteristics of the Syllable
3. Identificatory function - is conditioned by the
pronunciation of the speakers.
The listener can understand the exact meaning of the
utterance only if he perceives the correct syllabic
boundary - “syllabodisjuncture”, e.g. pea stalks (стебли
гороха) - peace talks (мирные переговоры); my train
(мой поезд) - might rain (возможен дождь).

18.

References
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