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    The Syllable (Term Paper)

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    Ahmed S. Mubarak
    This document discusses definitions and theories of the syllable from phonetic and phonological perspectives. It begins by defining the syllable phonetically as a unit with an obstruction center. It then discusses definitions from chest pulse theory and prominence theory. Optimality theory views the syllable as having onset, nucleus, and coda constituents. Different constraint rankings in optimality theory produce different syllable types cross-linguistically. The document also presents a syllable tree structure and sonority scale. It concludes by acknowledging the extensive literature on syllables and provides a brief introduction to identifying syllables phonetically and phonologically.

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    The Syllable (Term Paper)

    Uploaded by

    Ahmed S. Mubarak
    127 views9 pages
    This document discusses definitions and theories of the syllable from phonetic and phonological perspectives. It begins by defining the syllable phonetically as a unit with an obstruction center. It then discusses definitions from chest pulse theory and prominence theory. Optimality theory views the syllable as having onset, nucleus, and coda constituents. Different constraint rankings in optimality theory produce different syllable types cross-linguistically. The document also presents a syllable tree structure and sonority scale. It concludes by acknowledging the extensive literature on syllables and provides a brief introduction to identifying syllables phonetically and phonologically.

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    This document discusses definitions and theories of the syllable from phonetic and phonological perspectives. It begins by defining the syllable phonetically as a unit with an obstruction center. It then discusses definitions from chest pulse theory and prominence theory. Optimality theory views the syllable as having onset, nucleus, and coda constituents. Different constraint rankings in optimality theory produce different syllable types cross-linguistically. The document also presents a syllable tree structure and sonority scale. It concludes by acknowledging the extensive literature on syllables and provides a brief introduction to identifying syllables phonetically and phonologically.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    127 views9 pages

    The Syllable (Term Paper)

    Uploaded by

    Ahmed S. Mubarak
    This document discusses definitions and theories of the syllable from phonetic and phonological perspectives. It begins by defining the syllable phonetically as a unit with an obstruction center. It then discusses definitions from chest pulse theory and prominence theory. Optimality theory views the syllable as having onset, nucleus, and coda constituents. Different constraint rankings in optimality theory produce different syllable types cross-linguistically. The document also presents a syllable tree structure and sonority scale. It concludes by acknowledging the extensive literature on syllables and provides a brief introduction to identifying syllables phonetically and phonologically.

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    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 9

    0.

    An introductory remark
    The syllable has constantly been in the centre of many phonological theories and has consequently received a lot of attention both phonetically and phonologically. This is so because of the pivotal role it plays in studying phonology in general and the suprasegmental features in particular. Being of such an importance, the syllable will be theoretically surveyed in this paper from different points of view both phonetic and phonological in order to have a clearer picture about the role it plays in phonology.

    1. Some Phonetic Definitions of the Syllable


    The syllable is a physical unit that has an underlying representation which is proved to be psychologically real (Ehrensberger-Dow, 2006: 157). Generally, it can be defined from a phonetic point of view as a unit of speech consisting of a centre which has little or no obstruction to airflow and which sounds comparatively loud; before and after this centre there will be greater obstruction to airflow and/or less loud sound (Roach, 2000: 70). For instance, in the monosyllabic word, cat /kt/, the vowel // is the centre at which little obstruction takes place, whereas we have complete obstruction to the airflow for the surrounding plosives /k/ and /t/.

    In chest pulse theory, the syllable is defined in relation to the way it is produced in the context of muscular activities and lung movements in the process of speech. Experiments have shown that the number of chest pulses, accompanied by increase of air pressure can determine the number of syllables produced, thus the number of syllables will be equal tothe number of chest pulses (Grimson, 1980: 56).

    From an auditory perspective, nonetheless, attempts have been made to provide a sound definition of the syllable. In this regard, and according to the prominence theory, the number of syllables in a word is determined by the number of peaks of prominence. In the word enter-

    taining /entten/ the peaks of prominence are represented by the vowels /e/, //, /e/, and //.

    Another approach is presented by sonority theory according to which the pulses of pulmonic air stream in speech correspond to peaks in sonority. The sonority of a speech sound represents its relative loudness compared to other sounds and each syllable corresponds to a peak in the flow rate of pulmonic air (Giegerich, 1992: 132). Thus nuclear elements or

    syllabic segments can be described as intrinsically more sonorous than marginal or non-syllabic elements.

    Speech sounds can be ranked in terms of their intrinsic sonority according to a sonority scale. The sonority scale for English is given below, although in principle it is also valid for other languages. Voiced segments are more sonorous than voiceless ones and sonorants are more sonorous than obstruents; vowels are more sonorous than consonants, open vowels being more sonorous than close ones. The disyllabic word painting /pent/ has been plotted onto the sonority scale as an example. more sonorous Vowels Approximants Nasals Sonority scale Fricatives Affricates less sonorous Plosives

    As can be seen from the chart, there are two peaks of sonority in the phoneme string /p-e-n-t--/, namely the vowels /e/ and / /. This is to indicate that the number of syllables is two as well.

    2. The syllable in linear and non-linear phonologies


    Structurally, two competing views of the syllable are usually distinguished. In one view (e.g., Hooper, 1972), the syllable is seen as a linear string of phonemes which is in itself has no internal structure. The majority of present-day phonological theories, however, agree that the syllable has constituent or hierarchical, non-linear, rather than linear, structure. In non-linear phonology, the syllable (marked as ) has two immediate constituents, i. e. it branches into two elements the onset (O), which includes any consonants that precede the nuclear element (the vowel), and the rhyme (R), which subsumes the nuclear element (the vowel) as well as any marginal elements (consonants) that might follow it. The rhyme, in turn, further branches into peak (P), also known as nucleus, and coda (Co). The Peak represents the nuclear or most sonorous element in a syllable. The coda includes all consonants that follow the peak in a syllable (Hulst, 1985). The yllable structure may be represented graphically by means of a tree diagram as in the following example of /pent/ O P p e R Co nt

    The immediate constituents O, P, and Co can be further branched into their ultimate constituents, thus: O P R Co

    nt

    c p

    v e

    c n

    c t

    3. The syllable in optimality theory


    It is a truism that all languages have syllables of the form of CV but not automatically other forms (Prince and Smolensky 1993), which follows from certain typological generalizations. First, if a language has syllables without onsets (V), it also has syllables with onsets (CV). Second, if a language has closed syllables1 (CVC), it also has open ones (CV). Furthermore, if a language has syllables with complex onsets (CCV), it also has (CV) syllables. And finally, if a language has syllables with complex codas

    Closed syllables are those which have coda; open syllables are those which do not.

    (CVCC), it also has (CVC) syllables and therefore also (CV) ones (Fry and Vijver, 2003: 6). Dealing with the syllable, the optimality theory proposes two syllable constraints that are specific to syllables. The first is called (Onset) and it can be violated by any syllable without onset) and the second is called (NoCoda) which can be violated when a segment is found in the coda (Fery and Vijver, 2003: 6). One could imagine a different set of constraints, put within an optimality theoretic framework, that would account for syllabification, but most work to date has assumed some version of these constraints, or constraint families (Goldsmith, 2009: 18). If faithfulness constraints (Dep) and (Max) are ranked lower than the syllable constraints. A language will, therefore use either epenthesis or deletion to ensure that surface forms are of the form CVCVCV. If Onset is ranked higher than the faithfulness constraints, which are in turn ranked higher than NoCoda, then some strategy, such as consonant epenthesis, will emerge to provide a consonant to precede any vowel that is not preceded by a consonant. If the faithfulness constraints outrank the syllable constraints, then codas, coda clusters, and onset clusters may emerge, if the lexicon and the morphology provide such circumstances (Fery and Vijver, 2003: 6).

    Fry and Vijver (ibid: 7- 8) present several constraints rankings which stand for different types of languages in three tableaux. In the first Tableau (1), the Tableau 1: Onset, NoCoda >> Faith (No epenthesis, no deletion)

    If Faith is ranked above NoCoda but below Onset, the language has the syllable types that win in Tableau (2). The ranking in that tableau allows both CV and CVC syllables.

    Tableau 2: Onset >> Faith >> NoCoda

    In Tableau (3) the consequences of the ranking Faith >> Onset >> NoCoda are illustrated. This ranking allows the syllable types CV, CVC,V, and VC. Tableau 3: Faith >> Onset >> NoCoda

    The Tableaux (1-3) illustrate that all languages, irrespective of their constraint ranking, allow CV syllables. More complex types of syllables, in contrast, are only allowed in some constraint rankings. The ability of OT to explain typological patterns as a result of the interaction of markedness and faithfulness constraints is the core of the theory, and it is to a great extent responsible for its success.

    4. Coda
    In 1968, Ernst Pulgram made a remark on the study of the syllable saying, conscience, courtesy, and caution require that anyone wishing to concern himself with the syllable read all, or at least most, of the enormous literature on it.Commenting on these words, Goldsmith (2009: 2) states that life is short, and space shorter still and so no one can actually fulfill this demand. Consequently, in this paper, I make no claim that I have surveyed ALL, or even MOST, of the literature on the syllable. I, however tried my best, considering the short span of time, to introduce LITTLE about the identification of the syllable, both phonetically and phonologically.

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