This article discusses the unit of speech. For the computer operating system, see Syllable (operating system).

A syllable (ancient Greek: συλλαβή) is a unit of speech that is made up of nucleus (most often a vowel) with one or more option 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.

Syllable structure

The general structure of a syllable consists of three parts:

• onset
• nucleus
• coda

The syllable nucleus is often a sonorant, usually a vowel, 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 (also rhyme) consists of a nucleus and a coda.

Generally, every syllable requires a nucleus. A coda-less syllable of the form CV (i.e. a sequence of consonant+vowel) is called an open syllable, while a syllable that has a coda (CVC, CVCC, etc.) is called a closed (or checked) syllable. Almost all languages allow syllables with empty codas (i.e. no consonants following the nucleus).

In some theories of phonology, syllable structures can be displayed as tree diagrams similar to the trees found in some types of syntax.

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.

Syllables and phonotactic constraints

Phonotactic rules determine which sounds are allowed or disallowed in each part of the syllable. English has relatively few phonotactic restrictions; syllables may begin with up to three consonants (as in string or splash), and end with up to three or four (as in burnt or sixths). Other languages are much more restricted; Japanese, for example, only allows /n/ and a generic "lengthening segment" in a coda, and has no consonant clusters at all (the onset is composed of at most one consonant). Hebrew and Arabic forbid empty onsets (the names transliterated as "Israel", "Abraham", "Omar", "Ali" and "Abdullah", among many others, actually begin with semiconsonantic glides or with glottal or pharyngeal consonants).

Syllables and stress

Syllable structure often interacts with stress. In Latin, for example, stress is regularly determined by the presence or absence of a coda in the syllable before the last.

Syllable-less languages

The notion of syllable is challenged by languages that allow long strings of consonants without any intervening vowel or sonorant. Salishan languages are famous for this. For instance, the Bella Coola (a Salishan language of British Columbia) sentence

xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłs kʷc̓   'Then he had had in his possession a bunchberry plant.'     (Bagemihl 1991:16)

contains only obstruents. Thus, it is not clear that the syllable need be a linguistic universal.

See also

• Mora (linguistics)
• Phonology
• Stress (phonology)
• Pitch accent
• Timing (linguistics)
• List of the longest English words with one syllable

External links

• What is a syllable? (SIL) (http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsASyllable.htm)
• What is a syllabic consonant? (SIL) (http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsASyllabicConsonant.htm)
• What is an onset? (SIL) (http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAnOnset.htm)
• What is a rime? (SIL) (http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsARime.htm)
• Syllable (Lexicon of Linguistics) (http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=syllable)
• Onset (Lexicon of Linguistics) (http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=onset)
• Rime (Lexicon of Linguistics) (http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=rhyme)
• Nucleus (Lexicon of Linguistics) (http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=nucleus)
• Coda (Lexicon of Linguistics) (http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=coda)

• What is metrical phonology? (SIL) (http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsMetricalPhonology.htm)
• Syllable Weight (Lexicon of Linguistics) (http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Syllable+weight)
• Mora (Lexicon of Linguistics) (http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=mora)
• Foot (Lexicon of Linguistics) (http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=foot)
• Quantity-(in)sensitivity (Lexicon of Linguistics) (http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Quantity-(in)sensitivity)
• Extrametrical (Lexicon of Linguistics) (http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Extrametrical)
• Maximal Onset Principle (Lexicon of Linguistics) (http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Maximal+onset+principle)
• What is syllabification? (SIL) (http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsSyllabification.htm)
• Syllabification (Lexicon of Linguistics) (http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=syllabification)
• What is a nuclear syllable? (SIL) (http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsANuclearSyllable.htm)
• Syllables Quiz (http://www.kwiznet.com/p/takeQuiz.php?ChapterID=1787&CurriculumID=13)

References and recommended reading

• Bagemihl, Bruce. (1991). Syllable structure in Bella Coola. Proceedings of the New England Linguistics Society, 21, 16-30.
• Ladefoged, Peter. (2001). A course in phonetics (4th ed.). Heile & Heinle, Thompson Learning.