English 415
Sections 50 & 250
Syllables
n Most of us have an intuitive feeling about syllables and there
is no doubt about the number of syllables in the majority of words.
Surprisingly, however, there is no agreed upon definition for the term
syllable.
n The problem is that it is actually difficult to state an objective
phonetic procedure for locating the number of syllables in a word or a phrase.
Syllables
n So what can we agree on?
n We can agree that a syllable is made up of three
parts:
n One: The Nucleus, which is the
“core” of the syllable.
n It’s the vowel if there is one. Otherwise, the
nucleus is made up of a syllabic consonant.
Syllables
n
All syllables have a
nucleus, but may or may not have other constituents.
n Two: The Onset, which is made up of
all of the consonants before the nucleus.
n Three: The Coda, which is everything
after the nucleus.
Syllables
n Another thing that we can agree on is the
difference between open vs. closed syllables.
n Closed syllables end in a consonant.
n Open syllables end in vowel.
Syllables
n Currently, the most popular approach to defining
the syllable is in terms of the Phonological Approach, which appeals to
the notion of Phonotactic Constraints.
Syllables
n In every language, there are restrictions on the
kinds of sounds and sound sequences possible in different positions in words
(particularly at the beginning and the end of words).
Syllables
n These restrictions can be formulated in terms of
rules stating which sound sequences are possible in a language and which are
not.
n Languages generally prefer CV, but some languages
allow a syllable to begin with more than one consonant.
Syllables
n Can you figure out the allowable syllable types in
English?
Syllables
n English has a wide variety of syllable types:
n V oh
n VC at
n VCC ask
n VCCC asked
Syllables
n CV no
n CVC not
n CVCC ramp
n CVCCC ramps
Syllables
n CCV flew
n CCVC flute
n CCVCC flutes
n CCVCCC crafts
Syllables
n CCCV spree
n CCCVC spleen
n CCCVCC strength
n CCCVCCC strengths
Syllables
n Other languages don’t have such a large number of
syllable structures.
Syllables
n Hebrew
n CV
n CVC
n CVCC (only
at end of word)
Syllables
n Japanese
n V
n CV
n CVC
Syllables
n Hawaiian
n V
n CV
Syllables
n Indonesian
n V
n VC
n CV
n CVC
Syllables
n Hebrew doesn’t allow consonant clusters in onsets.
n Indonesian, allows consonant clusters only in
middle of words and only in two separate syllables.
n Hawaiian does not allow clusters at all.
Syllables
n English, however, allows any consonant to occur
word-initial, except for [z] and [©¯] (except in borrowed words, such as
‘Jacques’ or ‘Nguyen’; no native English word begins with them).
n A large number of two consonant combinations
occur, with a stop or a fricative being followed by a liquid or glide:
Syllables
n [br] bring
n [gl] glean
n [my] music
n [kw] quick
Syllables
n [Tr] three
n [fl] fly
n [hy] humor
n [sw] sweet
Syllables
n In addition, [s] can also be followed by voiceless
and nasal stops (stay, small) and by [f] and [v] in a small number of borrowed
words (sphere, svelte).
n [š] can be followed by a nasal stop or a liquid,
but only [šr] is a cluster native to English (shrink).
Phonotactics
n Not all sound systems are the same. For example,
some languages have fewer or more phonemes and/or allophones than English.
n We can hear this when a non-native speaker
pronounces English.
Phonotactics
n French speakers, for example, often pronounce this
[DIs] as [zIs] and thin [TIn] as [sIn].
n The reason for this mispronunciation is that the
phonemic inventory of French does not contain [D] or [T], so French speakers substitute the nearest
equivalent sounds.
Phonotactics
n This is known as sound substitution.
n If a language has severe restrictions on its phonotactics,
the restrictions will apply to every word in the language, native or not.
Phonotactics
n Therefore, just as languages substitute familiar
sounds for non-familiar ones, languages also seek to overcome problems with
borrowing foreign words which violate their phonotactics.
Phonotactics
n There are different ways of handling phonotactic
problems. When borrowing a foreign word that violates their syllable structure,
languages must force it to fit somehow.
n For example, if a language has only CV syllable
structure, CCV, CVC, and other non-CV syllables must be forced into a CV
framework.
Phonotactics
n Take Japanese for example:
n Japanese opts for insertion.
n Japanese inserts vowels into consonant clusters,
so that (for example) a CCC sequence will end up as CVCVCV.
n The insertions are rule-governed, meaning that the
insertion always works the same way.
Phonotactics
n Thus, we can predict the shape of new words in
Japanese.
n Look at these rules of insertion for borrowed
English words:
Phonotactics
n So, when the English term birth control was
borrowed into Japanese, what does it become?
n /b«rT/ → /ba:su/
n /k«ntrol/ → /kantoro:ru/
Phonotactics
n Can you figure out how to pronounce the list of
words, using the Japanese phonotactic constraint rules?
n Baseball
Milk
n France
Salad
n Hotel
Golf
n Tape Recorder
Suprasegmental Features
n So far we have studied the characteristics of the segments
of speech
n But speech sounds may also have suprasegmental
features
n “Riding on the top of other segmental features”
Suprasegmental Features
n Are different from segmental features.
n Not only may they belong to a single phonetic
segment,
n They may instead extent across numerous segments
in an utterance.
Suprasegmental Features
n Intonation
n Pattern of rises and falls in pitch across a
stretch of speech such as a sentence.
n Meaning can depend in part on the sentence’s intonation
contour.
Suprasegmental Features
n For example:
n[yu gat «n e an D« tEst]
n You can make this sentence sound like a statement
-
n Or a question.
Suprasegmental Features
n Intonation also helps mark the boundaries of a
syntactic unit.
n For example:
n[yu gat «n e an D« tEst, « si an D« homw«rk, n` « bi an D« kwIz]
Suprasegmental Features
n Tone
n In many languages, the pitch at which the
syllables in a word are pronounced can make a difference in the word’s meaning.
n Such languages are called tone languages.
Suprasegmental Features
n Languages include: Thai, Chinese dialects,
Vietnamese, the Bantu languages of Africa such as Zulu, Luganda, and Shona,
other African languages like Yoruba and Igbo, and North and South American
Indian languages like Apache, Navajo, Kiowa, and Mazotec.
Suprasegmental Features
n So:
n mā (high level)
‘mother’
n má (low
rising) ‘hemp’
n mă (low falling rising) ‘horse’
n mà (high
falling) ‘scold’
Suprasegmental Features
n Two types of tonal languages:
n
Register tone
languages
n Contain only register, or level, tones such as
high, mid, low.
n Contour tone languages
n Contain gliding tones as well as register tones.
Suprasegmental Features
n Stress
n Property of syllables, not individual segments.
n Stressed syllable more prominent than an
unstressed syllable.
n But this is relative.
Suprasegmental Features
n What is important is that the stressed syllable is
perceived to be produced with greater effort.
n English uses several stress levels, as illustrated
by the word photography.
Suprasegmental Features
n In this word, the second syllable is most
prominent – primary stress.
n The final syllable is next most prominent – secondary
stress.
n The other syllables are unstressed – tertiary
stress.
Suprasegmental Features
n Suprasegmental features are difficult to
transcribe because they are ‘superimposed’ on the other features.