Phonetics and

phonology

Syllable and phonotactics

Szczecin University

March 8, 2014

Issues to be discussed



The definition of the syllable



Phonology and the syllable



The structure of the syllable



Sonority hierarchy



OSDP

Definition of the syllable



Syllable – a unit of organisation typically longer than
a sound and shorter than a word.



Syllables are often considered the phonological
"building blocks" of words, as they represent
language-specific sound combinations.



[str-], [skl-], [spj-] Which of these sound sequences
in not found in English?



The term has not been properly defined (Ladefoged
1975)

Arguments for the existence of

the syllable



Syllabaries – writing systems based

on the syllable, e.g. Japanese (kana).



The unit is easily recognised by

children.



Phonological processes are applied

within the domain of the syllable.

Spectrogram of potatoes

Arguments against the syllable

Syllable structure

Phonological syllable



Phonological syllable – the way sounds

combine in a language to produce typical
sound sequences.



The syllables-are-like-words approach.



Phonotactics – the study of permissible

sound combinations in a language.

Phonotactic preferences



70% of the world's languages have only CV

syllables, e.g. Maori.



Fitch (2000: 261) suggests that “the

evolutionary precursor of syllabic structure
was the mandibular oscillation associated
with chewing and sucking, which provides a
frame onto which the content of specific
phonemes is superimposed”.



English phonotactics is said to be relatively

complex.

Monosyllabic words of RP English



V

ear



VC

at



VCC

act



VCCC

acts



CV

far



CCV

star



CCCV

spray



CCCVC

strike



CCCVCC

script



CCCVCCC strength



CCCVCCCC strengths

English and Polish phonotactics



Languages that have the same sound systems

may have different phonotactics.



English and Polish have ‘the same’ inventory of

plosives, i.e. /p, b, t, d, k, g/, but initial plosive
clusters are not found in English.



Both languages allow for initial fricative-plosive

sequences, but in English the /s/ sound is the only
fricative that can be found in such clusters, e.g.
speak, while Polish allows for several fricatives,
e.g. szpilka, wtórny, śpiewać.

Language-specific phonotactics



Phonotactic constraints

l
p r

s + t + j
k w



Accidental gaps: *spw, *stl, *stw, *skl

Sonority



Sonority - the carrying power of individual

sounds.



The sonority of a sound is the greater, the

longer distance the sound can be heard
from.



It has been observed that this auditory

effect is directly linked with the degree of
openness of the vocal tract, which explains
why vowels are heard from considerably
longer distances than, for instance,
voiceless fricatives.

Sonority hierarchy



V > SV > L > N > F > A > P



a > j > l > m > s > ʧ > p



Sonority hierarchies depend on the

phonology of a given language.



Spanish sonority hierarchy



i, u > e, o > a > l/r > p, s, ʧ

Sonority and syllable structure



Sonority Sequencing Principle - well-formed

onset cluster is one in which the sonority of
the individual constituent segments increases
as we approach the nucleus of the syllable,
e.g. [kla], [ksla].



By the same token, in well-formed codas

sonority should decrease as we move further
away from the nucleus, e.g. [arp], [arsk].



The SSP does not account for the existence of

initial clusters of the [str-] type.

The Optimal Sonority Distance
Principle



The OSDP defines the way in which

segments should order themselves in a
successful sequence; the relations
between sonority distances between pairs
of neighbouring sounds should be
optimally balanced.



The OSDP ought to be understood as a set

of conditions, formed in terms of distances
in sonority between the adjacent segments
of a cluster, that need to be fulfilled if a
given cluster is to overcome the tendency
for simplification.

Word-initial doubles



C1C2V: |son (C1) – son (C2) ≥ |son (C2) –

son (V)|, i.e. sondis (C1, C2) ≥ sondis (C2,
V)



The sonority distance between C1 and C2

should be greater than or equal to the
sonority distance between C2 and V.



The sonority distance between C1 and C2

should be greater than or equal to the
sonority distance between C1 and V.

Example



P A F N L SV V



6 5 4 3 2 1 0



The initial cluster of play



(C1, C2) ≥ sondis (C2, V)



6 -2 ≥ 2 - 0

Word-initial and word-final doubles

Syllabification



How to syllabify the word extra?



The maximal onset principle



e.kstrə ek.strə eks.trə ekst.rə
ekstr.ə



Language-specific syllabification rules



Los Estados Unidos



Lo-ses-ta-do-su-ni-dos

Ambisyllabicity



There are words in English, in which a

given speech sound is said to belong to
two neighbouring syllables.



In bisyllabic words with a stressed short

vowel the following

consonant(s) is said

to be ambisyllabic, e.g. better /bet.ə/,
petty /pet.i/

Thank you