Table 2
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 991.
Table 1
| Placement of VOWELS | Placement of CONSONANTS |
| open:the V is at the end, such a S is articulated with the opening of the mouth by the end: e.g. they, wri-ter | covered at the beginning:the C is at the beginning of the syllable: e.g. tie |
| closed:which end in C, at the end of such a S the mouth is closed: e.g. hun-dred, hat | covered at the end:the C is at the end of a S: e.g. on |
The presentation of a syllable structure in terms of C and V (canonical forms) gives rather numerous combinations which can be grouped into 4 structural types of syllables:
| 1. Fully open | V are, or |
| 2. Fully closed(V between C) | CVC fat CCVC place CVCC fact CCCVCC street CVCCC facts CVCCCC sixths [siksθs] |
| 3. Covered at the beginning(one C or a sequence of C precede a vowel) | CV too CCV spy CCCV straw |
| 4. Covered at the end(one C or more complete the syllable) | VC on VCC act VCCC acts |
Structurally, the commonest types of the syllable in English are VC; CVC. CV is considered to be the universal structure. CV syllabic types constitute more than half of all structural types in Russian and Ukrainian.
The characteristic feature of English is monosyllabism: it contains between four
and five thousand monosyllabic words. Most of the words of old English origin is of
one syllable, the limit for the number of syllables in a word in English is 8, e.g. incomprehensibility.
Syllables can be also designated
1. by the position in the word:
from the beginning – INITIAL (ïî÷àòêîâèé), MEDIAL (ñåðåäèííèé), FINAL ô³íàëüíèé/ê³íöåâèé) or from the end – ULTIMATE (îñòàíí³é), PENULTIMATE (ïåðåäîñòàíí³é/äðóãèé â³ä ê³íöÿ), ANTEPENULTIMATE (òðåò³é â³ä ê³íöÿ);
2. by the position in relation to stress:
PRETONIC (ïåðåäíàãîëîøåíèé), TONIC (íàãîëîøåíèé), POSTTONIC ï³ñëÿíàãîëîøåíèé) (Any syllable which is not tonic is ATONIC/íåíàãîëîøåíèé).
e.g. tre - men - dous
initial medial final
antepenultimate penultimate ultimate
pretonic tonic posttonic
Syllabic structure of a language like its phonemic structure is patterned, which means that the sounds of language can be grouped into syllables according to certain
rules. The part of phonetics that deals with this aspect of a language is called phonotactics. Phonotactic possibilities of a language determine the rules of syllable division.
Each syllable contains exactly one vowel. This vowel may be preceded or followed
bó one or more consonants. The vowel itself may be a short vowel, a long vowel or a diphthong; or if it is the weak vowel [ə], it may be combined with a nasal [n], [m]or a liquid [l] to give a syllabic consonant.
The division of a word into syllables is called syllabification [Wells 2000: xix]. The question of syllabification in English is controversial: different phoneticians hold
different views about it. It is generally agreed that phonetic syllable divisions must be
such as to avoid (as far as possible) creating consonant clusters which are not found
in words in isolation [Wells 2000]. Thus it may be argued that candy should be ['kæn.
di] or ['kænd. i] but not ['kæ. ndi] since [nd] is not a possible initial consonant cluster
in English. This principle is called the phonotactic constraint(ôîíîòàêòè÷íå îáìåæåííÿ) on syllabification.
Syllable divisions in Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (LPD) by J. C. Wells 2000] are shown by spacing, e.g.playtime /'plei taim/.
In English Pronouncing Dictionary (EPD) by Daniel Jones-Alfred Ch. Gimson-Peter Roach (15th edition 1997), syllable division is marked with a dot – [.] as recommended bó the International Phonetic Association (the IPA), e.g. admirable ['æd.mər.ə.bl].
Phonetic (spoken)syllables must not be confused with orthographic (written)
syllables. An orthgraphic syllable is a group of letters in spelling [Wells 2000: 758]. Syllables in writing are also called syllabographs.
When a word is split across two lines of writing, it should be broken at an orthographic syllable boundary. Parts of phonetic and orthographic syllables do not always coincide:
worker ['wç:k.ə] CVC-V = two phonetic syllables and one syllabograph
A most GENERAL RULEclaims that division of words into syllables in writing is passed on the morphological principlewhich demands that the part of a word which is separated should be either a prefix, or a suffix or a root (morphograph), e.g. pic- ture ['pik ʧə].
Compound wordscan be divided according to their meaning: hot-dog; spot-light.
It is not possible to divide a word within a phonetic syllable:
A suffix of TWO syllables such as -ABLE, -ABLY, -FULLY cannot be divided in writing, e.g. reli-able, lov-ably, beauti-fully. If there are two or three consonants before -NG, these consonants may be separated in writing: gras-ping, puz-zling.
With the exception of -LY, a word cannot be divided so that an ending of two letters such > -ED, -ER, -IÑ begins the next line, e.g. worked, teacher, hectic, BUT: cold-ly, bold-ly.
A word of ONE phonetic syllable, a word of less than FIVE letters cannot be divided into syllabographgs, e.g. piece [pi:s], time [taim].
Now we shall consider three very important functions of the syllable.
The first function is known to be the constitutivefunction (êîíñòèòóòèâíà ôóíêö³ÿ) of the syllable. It lies in its ability to be a part of a word or a word itself. The
syllable forms language units of greater magnitude, that is words, morphemes and utterances. In this respect two things should be emphasized. First, the syllable is the unit
within which the relations between the distinctive features of the phonemes and their
acoustic correlates are revealed. Second, within a syllable (or a sequence of syllables) prosodic characteristics of speech are realized, which form the stress-pattern of a word and the rhythmic and intonation structures of an utterance. In sum, the syllable is a specific minimal structure of both segmental and suprasegmental features.
The other function of the syllable is its distinctivefunction (ñìèñëîðîçð³çíþâàëüíà/äèñòèíêòèâíà ôóíêö³ÿ). In this respect the syllable is characterized by its ability to differentiate words and word-forms. To illustrate this a set of minimal pairs should be found so that qualitative and/or quantitative peculiarities
of certain allophones should indicate the beginning or the end of the syllable.
So far only one minimal pair has been found in English to illustrate the word distinctive function in the syllable, that is ['nai-treit] nitrate – ['nait-reit] night-rate.
The distinction here lies in:
1. the degree of aspiration of [t] sounds which is greater in the first member of the
opposition than in the second;
2. allophonic difference of [r]: in the first member of the opposition it is slightly devoiced under the influence of the initial [t];
3. the length of the diphthong [ai]: in the second member of the opposition it is shorter because the syllable is closed by a voiceless plosive [t].
The third function of the syllable is the identificatory function (³äåíòèô³êàòèâíà
ôóíêö³ÿ): the listener can understand the exact meaning of the utterance only when the
correct syllabic boundary is perceived:
an aim — a name
an ice house — a nice house
peace talks — pea stalks
Sometimes the difference in syllabic division might be the basic ground for differentiation sentences in such minimal pairs as:
I saw her eyes. — I saw her rise.
I saw the meat. — I saw them eat.
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