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Encyclopedia > Open syllable

A syllable (Ancient Greek: συλλαβή) is a unit of speech that is made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with one or more optional phones (single sounds or "phonetic segments"). Syllables are often considered the phonological "building blocks" of words. They can influence the rhythm of a language, its prosody, its poetic meter, its stress patterns, etc. Ancient Greek refers to the stage in the history of the Greek language corresponding to Classical Antiquity, which normally applies on two ancient periods of Greek history: Archaic and Classic Greece. ... One might be looking for the academic discipline of communications. ... In phonetics and phonology, the nucleus is the central part of the syllable, mostly commonly a vowel. ... In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by an open configuration of the vocal tract, in contrast to consonants, which are characterized by a constriction or closure at one or more points along the vocal tract. ... In phonetics and phonology, a phone is a speech sound considered as a physical event without regard to its place in the sound system semantics of a language. ... Phonology (Greek phone = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), or phonemics, is a subfield of linguistics closely associated with phonetics. ... Look up word in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Word may mean: Word (linguistics), a unit of language that symbolizes or communicates a meaning Microsoft Word, a word processor Word (computer science), a small group of bits Word may also be: In hip hop slang, an exclamation indicating deep and complete... Prosody may mean several things: Prosody consists of distinctive variations of stress, tone, and timing in spoken language. ... Bust of Homer, one of the earliest European poets, in the British Museum Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... In linguistics, stress is the emphasis given to some syllables (often no more than one in each word, but in many languages, long words have a secondary stress a few syllables away from the primary stress, as in the words cóunterfòil or còunterintélligence. ...


A word that consists of a single syllable (like English cat) is called a monosyllable (such a word is monosyllabic), while a word consisting of two syllables (like monkey) is called a disyllable (such a word is disyllabic). The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Contents


Syllable structure

The general structure of a syllable consists of the following segments:

  • Onset (obligatory in some languages, optional in others)
  • Rime
    • Nucleus (obligatory in all languages)
    • Coda (optional in some languages, highly restricted or prohibited in others)

In some theories of phonology, these syllable structures are displayed as tree diagrams (similar to the trees found in some types of syntax). In phonetics and phonology, a syllable onset is the part of a syllable that precedes the syllable nucleus. ... In the study of phonology in linguistics, the rime or rhyme of a syllable consists of a nucleus and an optional coda. ... In phonetics and phonology, the nucleus is the central part of the syllable, mostly commonly a vowel. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... The term tree diagram is used in different ways in different disciplines. ...


The syllable nucleus is typically a sonorant, usually a vowel sound, in the form of a monophthong, diphthong, or triphthong, but sometimes including consonants like [l] and [r]. The syllable onset is the sound(s) occurring before the nucleus, and the syllable coda is the sound(s) occurring after the nucleus. A rime consists of a nucleus and a coda. In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a member of a class of speech sounds that are continuants produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. ... A monophthong (in Greek μονόφθογγος = single note) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation; compare diphthong. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds) is a vowel combination usually involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... In phonetics, a triphthong is a monosyllabic vowel combination usually involving a quick, but smooth movement from one vowel to another that passes over a third one. ... A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture sufficient to cause audible turbulence, at one or more points along the vocal tract. ...


Generally, every syllable requires a nucleus. A coda-less syllable of the form V, CV, CCV, etc. (i.e. a sequence of any number of consonants + a vowel) is called an open syllable, while a syllable that has a coda (VC, CVC, CVCC, etc.) is called a closed syllable (or checked syllable). All languages allow syllables with empty codas (open syllables).


A heavy syllable is one with a branching rime or a branching nucleus. In some languages, heavy syllables include both CVV (branching nucleus) and CVC (branching rime) syllables. In other languages, only CVV syllables (ones with a long vowel or diphthong) are heavy, while CVC and CV syllables are light syllables. In moraic theory, heavy syllables are said to have two moras, while light syllables are said to have one. Categories: Move to Wiktionary | Stub ... In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds) is a vowel combination usually involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... Mora is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines stress in some languages. ...


In some languages, including English, a consonant may be analyzed as acting simultaneously as the coda of one syllable and the onset of the next, a phenomenon known as ambisyllabicity. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...


Syllables and suprasegmentals

The domain of suprasegmental features is the syllable and not a specific sound, that is to say, they affect all the segments of a syllable: In linguistics, prosody refers to intonation and vocal stress in speech. ...

Sometimes syllable length is also counted as a suprasegmental feature; for example, in most Germanic languages, long vowels may only exist with short consonants and vice versa. However, syllables can be analyzed as compositions of long and short phonemes, as in Finnish and Japanese, where consonant gemination and vowel length are independent. In linguistics, stress is the emphasis given to some syllables (often no more than one in each word, but in many languages, long words have a secondary stress a few syllables away from the primary stress, as in the words cóunterfòil or còunterintélligence. ... This article or section uses Ruby annotation. ... In linguistics, the timing in a language comprises the rhythmic qualities of speech, in particular how syllables are distributed across time. ...


Syllables and phonotactic constraints

Phonotactic rules determine which sounds are allowed or disallowed in each part of the syllable. English allows very complicated syllables; syllables may begin with up to three consonants (as in string or splash), and occasionally end with as many as four (as in prompts or sixths). Many other languages are much more restricted; Japanese, for example, only allows /n/ and a chroneme in a coda, and has no consonant clusters at all, as the onset is composed of at most one consonant. Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... In spoken language, a chroneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant. ...


There are languages that forbid empty onsets, Hebrew, Arabic, and many varieties of German (the names transliterated as "Israel", "Abraham", "Omar", "Ali" and "Abdullah", among many others, actually begin with semiconsonantic glides or with glottal or pharyngeal consonants). Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by 6 million people mainly in Israel, parts of the Palestinian territories, the United States and by Jewish communities around the world. ... Arabic (العربية al-arabiyyah, or less formally arabi) is the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. ...


Syllabification

Syllables and stress

Syllable structure often interacts with stress. In Latin, for example, stress is regularly determined by syllable weight, a syllable counting as heavy if has at least one of the following: Latin is the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments in the rime. ...

  • a long vowel in its nucleus
  • a diphthong in its nucleus
  • one or more coda(e)

In each case the syllable is considered to have two moras. Mora is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines stress in some languages. ...


Syllables and vowel tenseness

In most Germanic languages, lax vowels can only occur in closed syllables. Therefore, these vowels are also called checked vowels, as opposed to the tense vowels that are called free vowels because they can occur in open syllables. Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies The Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European (IE) language family, spoken by the Germanic peoples who settled in northern Europe along the borders of the Roman Empire. ... Tenseness is a term used in phonology to describe a particular vowel quality that is phonemically contrastive in many languages, including English. ...


Syllable-less languages

The notion of syllable is challenged by languages that allow long strings of consonants without any intervening vowel or sonorant. Languages of the Northwest coast of North America, including Salishan and Wakashan languages, are famous for this. For instance, these Nuxálk (Bella Coola) words contains only obstruents: The Salishan (also Salish) languages are a group of languages of western Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. ... Wakashan is a family of languages spoken around Vancouver Island. ... Nuxálk (also Bella Coola) is a Salishan language spoken in the Canadian town Bella Coola, British Columbia by approximately 20-30 elders. ... In phonetics, an obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing the airway. ...

[ɬχʷtɬʦxʷ] 'you spat on me'
[ʦ’ktskʷʦ’] 'he arrived'
[xɬp’χʷɬtɬpɬɬs] 'he had had in his possession a bunchberry plant' (Bagemihl 1991:589, 593, 627)

In Bagemihl's survey of previous analyses, he finds that the word [ʦ’ktskʷʦ’] would have been parsed into 0, 2, 3, 5, or 6 syllables depending which analysis is used. One analysis would consider all vowel and consonants segments as syllable nuclei, another would consider only a small subset as nuclei candidates, and another would simply deny the existence of syllables completely.


This type of phenomenon has also been reported in Berber languages (such as Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber) and Mon-Khmer languages (such as Semai, Temiar, Kammu). Afro-Asiatic - Berber The Berber languages (or Tamazight) are a group of closely related languages mainly spoken in Morocco and Algeria. ... The Mon-Khmer languages are the autochthonous languages of Indo-China. ...


Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber:

[tftktst tfktstt] 'you sprained it and then gave it'
[rkkm] 'rot' (imperf.) (Dell & Elmedlaoui 1985, 1988)

Semai:

[kckmrʔɛːc] 'short, fat arms' (Sloan 1988)

See also

Syllabification can be described as the separation of a word at the end of a line to improve the lines appearance in text. ... Mora is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines stress in some languages. ... Phonology (Greek phone = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), or phonemics, is a subfield of linguistics closely associated with phonetics. ... In linguistics, stress is the emphasis given to some syllables (often no more than one in each word, but in many languages, long words have a secondary stress a few syllables away from the primary stress, as in the words cóunterfòil or còunterintélligence. ... For pitch accent in music, see: accent (music). ... Timing, in linguistics, refers to the rhythmic qualities of speech in a given language, in particular how syllables are distributed across time. ... The longest English word of one syllable (in some dialects) is the eleven-letter squirrelled, as in Ive squirrelled away my nuts for the winter. ...

External links

References and recommended reading

  • Bruce Bagemihl (1991). "Syllable structure in Bella Coola". Linguistic Inquiry 22:589–646.
  • Dell, F.; & Elmedlaoui, M. (1985). Syllabic consonants and syllabification in Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, 7, 105-130. (Cited in Bagemihl 1991).
  • Dell, F.; & Elmedlaoui, M. (1988). Syllabic consonants in Berber: Some new evidence. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, 10, 1-17. (Cited in Bagemihl 1991).
  • Ladefoged, Peter (2001). A course in phonetics. 4th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers.. ISBN 0-15-507319-2.
  • Sloan, K. (1988). Bare-consonant reduplication: Implications for a prosodic theory of reduplication. In H. Borer (Ed.), Proceedings of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 7. Stanford, CA: Stanford Linguistics Association. (Cited in Bagemihl 1991).

  Results from FactBites:
 
Syllable - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (1067 words)
Syllables are often considered the phonological "building blocks" of words.
The syllable nucleus is typically a sonorant, usually a vowel sound, in the form of a monophthong, diphthong, or triphthong, but sometimes sonorant consonants like [l] or [r].
A heavy syllable is one with a branching rime or a branching nucleus — this is a metaphor, based on the nucleus or coda having lines that branch in a tree diagram.
Hebrew Syllable Classification (471 words)
A syllable is called “open” when it does not end with a “stopping” sound; otherwise it is “closed” (thus “ma” is an open syllable but “mat” is a closed syllable).
The first syllable is an open syllable since it does not end with a consonant.
The second syllable is Chet with a Segol ending with a final Mem.
  More results at FactBites »


 

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