Syllable.Different approaches.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 455.

In actual speech we do not pronounced separate sounds. Though they are the smallest units into which the speech continuum is divided. In connected speech the sounds tend to group themselves and form language units of higher levels: morphemes, words and phrases. Each of these units has a definite syllabic structure. And each of them has 2 aspects: syllable formation and syllable division. The syllable is a complicated phonetic phenomena, which can be studied on 4 levels: articulatory, acoustic, auditory and functional. Syllable – articulatory unit, because when we pronounce a syllable our organs of speech while producing a consonant take the position necessary for production of the following vowel. The syllable - the smallest auditory unit, because the listener can recognize the sounds only after he has analysed the whole syllable. The term "syllable" comes from a Greek word which means smth taken together. Thus, vowels can form syllable and consonants are enabled to do that without them. Syllable formation (V; VC; CV): V – uncovered open; VC – uncovered closed; СVС – covered closed; CV – covered open. There are different points of view on syllable division which are briefly the following: the most ancient theory states that there are as many syllables in a word as there are vowels. This theory is primitive because it does not take into consideration consonants which also can form syllables in some languages; the expiratory theory states that there are as many syllables in a word as there are expiration pulses. But: it is quite possible to pronounce several syllables in one expiration (seeing /si:irj/); the sonority theory states that there are as many syllables in a word as there are peaks of prominence or sonority.