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A syllable is a speech unit higher than a sound, because sounds are not pronounced separately but are usually formed into syllables, which, in their turn, are joined into words, phrases and sentences.
A syllable is the minimal unit of sounding speech.
The syllable can be analyzed from the acoustic and auditory, articulatory and functional points of view. It can be viewed in connection with its graphic representation.
1. Acoustically and auditorily a syllable is characterized by the force of utterance (accent), pitch of the voice, sonority and length.
2. Articulatory characteristics of a syllable are connected with sound juncture and with the theories of a syllable formation and syllable division.
3. Functional, or phonemic, characteristics of a syllable are connected with the constitutive, recognitive and distinctive properties of a syllable.
A syllable can be a single word: chair, part of a word: Eng-lish, or a part of the grammatical form of the word: la-ter.
There are different points of view on syllable formation which are briefly the following:
1. The ancient theory states that there are as many syllables in a word as there are vowels. This theory is primitive and insufficient since it does not take into consideration consonants which also can form syllables, neither does it explain the boundary of syllables.
2. The expiratory theory by R.H. Stetson states that there are as many syllables in a word as there are expiration pulses. The borderline between the syllables is the moment of the weakest expiration. This theory is inconsistent because it is quite possible to pronounce several syllables in one effort or expiration.
3. The sonority theory by O. Jespersen states there are as many syllables in a word as there are peaks of prominence according to the scale of sonority.
4. The “arc of loudness” or “arc of articulatory tension” theory is based on L.V. Shcherba’s statement that the centre of a syllable is the syllable forming phoneme. Sounds which precede or follow it constitute a chain or an arc which is weak in the beginning and in the end and strong in the middle.
5. The loudness theory introduced by N.I. Zhinkin. According to this theory the syllable is the arc of loudness which correlates with the arc of articulatory effort on the speed production level since variations in loudness are to the work of all speech mechanisms.
A syllable can be formed: 1) by a vowel V; 2) by a vowel and consonant VC; 3) by a consonant and a sonorant CS.
The English sonorants can form a syllable with consonants preceding them. The structural patterns of syllables formed by a sonorant with a preceding consonant are similar to VC patterns.
Among syllabic sonorants we find [1], [n], less commonly [m]. If sonorant is preceded by a vowel sound it loses its syllabic character and the syllable is formed by the vowel.
American linguists equate [l], [m], [n] with [əl], [əm], [ən] and thus reduce the opposition “syllabic – non-syllabic” consonant. There are some words in English which can be pronounced with either the syllabic or non-syllabic [l] and [n].
Sonorants are syllabic in contracted negative forms of auxiliary and modal verbs: did n 't and in the position between two noise consonants: abse n t.
The English sonorants [w], [j], [r] are non-syllabic, because they are syllable-initial.
Polysyllabic words are divided into syllables according to the number of vowels phonemes or syllabic consonants they contain.
Clusters str, sl, gr, dr, fr, tr, bl, pl, pr etc. can occur in initial position and can’t be divided.
Sequences of consonants tm, dm, tn, dn, dv, kt, tk, tl, dl, θl, jr, nr, t∫r, sθ, sj, sr, ms, ns can’t occur word-initially and can be divided.
Digraphs th, wh, ph, ch are not phonologically divided but only graphically.
A phonetic syllable consists of actually pronounced speech sounds. A phonetic syllable and orthographic syllable do not always coincide. For example in the word name there two orthographic syllables na-me and one phonetic syllable [neim].
Phonotactics – the study of the rules governing the possible phoneme sequences in a language. Phonotactic possibilities of a language determine the rules of syllable division.
Syllable division rules can be defined as follows:
1. An intervocalic consonant tends to belong to the following syllabic sound in cases when a consonant is preceded by a long vowel or a diphthong, as they are always free at the end.
2. In the case of a short stressed vowel followed by a consonant, intervocalic consonant tends to belong to the preceding syllable as the English checked vowels can occur only in a closed syllable.
Free vowels may occur both in open and in closed syllables.
The syllable has two very important functions.
The constitutive function of the syllable lies in its ability to be a part of a word or a word itself.
The distinctive function of the syllable lies in its ability to differentiate words and word-forms. Syllable division changes the allophonic contents of the word because the realization of the phoneme in different positions in a syllable (initial, medial, final) results in different allophones.
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