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For the computer operating system, see Syllable (operating system). Syllable is a free and open source Operating system for Pentium and compatible processors
Suprasegmentals
Syllable
Mora
Tone
Tone contour
Pitch accent
Register
Downstep
Upstep
Downdrift
Tone terracing
Floating tone
Tone sandhi
Tone letter
Stress
Secondary stress
Vowel reduction
Length
Chroneme
Gemination
Vowel length
Extra-short
Prosody
Intonation (pitch)
Pitch contour
Pitch reset
Stress
Rhythm
Metrical foot
Loudness
Prosodic unit
Timing (rhythm)
Vowel reduction

A syllable (Greek: συλλαβή) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. In Linguistics, prosody (from Greek προσωδία) is the Rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in Phonology that determines Syllable weight (which in turn determines stress Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words A tone contour is a tone in a tonal language which shifts from one pitch to another over the course of the syllable or word Pitch accent is a linguistic term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in pitch to give prominence to a Syllable Register (sociolinguisticsIn Linguistics, a register language also known as a pitch-register language is a language which combines tone and vowel In Phonetics, downstep is a phonemic or Phonetic downward shift of tone between the syllables or words of a tonal language In Phonetics, upstep is a phonemic or Phonetic upward shift of tone between the syllables or words of a tonal language In Phonetics, downdrift is the cumulative lowering of pitch over time due to interactions among tones called Downstep, in a Tonal language Tone terracing is a type of phonetic Downdrift, where the high or mid tones, but not the low tone shift downward in pitch ( downstep) after certain A floating tone is a Morpheme or element of a morpheme that contains no Consonants no Vowels but only tone. Tone sandhi is the change of tone that occurs in some languages when different tones come together in a word or phrase Tone letters are Written characters that represent the tones of a language especially Contour tones that were invented by Yuen Ren Chao and adopted In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word Secondary stress is the weaker of two degrees of stress in the Pronunciation of a word the stronger degree of stress is called 'primary' Vowel reduction is the term in Phonetics that refers to various changes in the acoustic quality of Vowels which are related to changes in stress In Phonetics, length or quantity is a feature of sounds that are distinctively longer than other sounds In linguistics a chroneme is a basic theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant In Phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken Consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short Consonant. In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound The International Phonetic Alphabet uses a Breve,, to indicate a speech sound (usually a Vowel) with less than normal duration In Linguistics, prosody (from Greek προσωδία) is the Rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech In Linguistics, intonation is variation of pitch whilst speaking which is not used to distinguish words In Linguistics, Speech synthesis, and Music, the pitch contour of a sound is a function or curve that tracks the perceived pitch of the sound In speech phonetic pitch reset occurs at the boundaries between Prosodic units Over the course of such units the median pitch of the voice declines from its In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word Rhythm (from Greek ῥυθμός - rhythmos, "any measured flow or movement symmetry" is the variation of the length and accentuation of In verse, many meters use a foot as the basic unit in their description of the underlying rhythm of a poem Loudness is the quality of a Sound that is the primary psychological correlate of physical strength (amplitude In Linguistics, a prosodic unit, often called an intonation unit or intonational phrase, is a segment of speech that occurs with a single Language timing is the rhythmic quality of a particular type of speech in particular how Syllables are distributed across time Vowel reduction is the term in Phonetics that refers to various changes in the acoustic quality of Vowels which are related to changes in stress Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Speech refers to the processes associated with the production and perception of Sounds used in Spoken language. It is typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal

Syllables are often considered the phonological "building blocks" of words. Phonology ( Greek φωνή (phōnē voice sound + λόγος (lógos word speech subject of discussion is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning A word is a unit of Language that carries meaning and consists of one or more Morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together and has a Phonetic They can influence the rhythm of a language, its prosody, its poetic meter, its stress patterns, etc. A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them In Linguistics, prosody (from Greek προσωδία) is the Rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word

Syllablic writing began several hundred years before the first letters. The Middle Bronze Age alphabets are two similar Undeciphered scripts dated to be from the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500 BCE and believed to be ancestral The earliest recorded syllables are on tablets written around 2800 BCE in the Sumerian city of Ur. Ur ( Sumerian:urim; Akkadian: ?) is modern Tell el-Mukayyar, Iraq, and was a city in ancient Sumer. This shift from pictograms to syllables has been called 'the most important advance in the history of writing'. A pictogram ( also spelled pictogramme) or pictograph is a Symbol representing a Concept, object, activity place or event [1]

A word that consists of a single syllable (like English cat) is called a monosyllable (such a word is monosyllabic), while a word consisting of two syllables (like monkey) is called a disyllable (such a word is disyllabic). English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States A word consisting of three syllables (such as indigent) is called a trisyllable (the adjective form is trisyllabic). A word consisting of more than three syllables (such as intelligence) is called a polysyllable (and could be described as polysyllabic), although this term is often used to describe words of two syllables or more.

Contents

Syllable structure

The general structure of a syllable consists of the following segments:

tree representation of a CVC syllable
tree representation of a CVC syllable

In some theories of phonology, these syllable structures are displayed as tree diagrams (similar to the trees found in some types of syntax). In Phonetics and Phonology, a syllable onset is the part of a Syllable that precedes the Syllable nucleus. In the study of Phonology in Linguistics, the rime or rhyme of a Syllable consists of a nucleus and an optional coda In Phonology, a syllable coda comprises the Consonant sounds of a Syllable that follow the nucleus, which is usually a Vowel Not all phonologists agree that syllables have internal structure; in fact, some phonologists doubt the existence of the syllable as a theoretical entity. See [1] for discussion of this point.

The syllable nucleus is typically a sonorant, usually making a vowel sound, in the form of a monophthong, diphthong, or triphthong, but sometimes sonorant consonants like [l] or [r]. In Phonetics and Phonology, a sonorant is a Speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the Vocal tract. A monophthong ( Greek μονόφθογγος "monophthongos" = single note) is a "pure" Vowel sound one whose articulation at In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with In Phonetics, a triphthong (from Greek τρίφθογγος, "triphthongos" literally "with three sounds" or "with three In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal The syllable onset is the sound or sounds occurring before the nucleus, and the syllable coda (literally 'tail') is the sound or sounds that follow the nucleus. The term rhyme covers the nucleus plus coda. In the one-syllable English word cat, the nucleus is a, the onset c, the coda t, and the rhyme at. This syllable can be abstracted as a consonant-vowel-consonant syllable, abbreviated CVC.

Generally, every syllable requires a nucleus. Onsets are extremely common, and some languages require all syllables to have an onset. (That is, a CVC syllable like cat is possible, but a VC syllable such as at is not. ) A coda-less syllable of the form V, CV, CCV, etc. is called an open syllable, while a syllable that has a coda (VC, CVC, CVCC, etc. ) is called a closed syllable (or checked syllable). All languages allow open syllables, but some, such as Hawaiian, do not have closed syllables. The Hawaiian language (Hawaiian ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i) is an Austronesian language that takes its name from Hawai'i, the largest island in the tropical

A heavy syllable is one with a branching rhyme or a branching nucleus — this is a metaphor, based on the nucleus or coda having lines that branch in a tree diagram. In Linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments in the rime. In some languages, heavy syllables include both VV (branching nucleus) and VC (branching rhyme) syllables, contrasted with V, which is a light syllable. In other languages, only VV syllables (ones with a long vowel or diphthong) are heavy, while both VC and V syllables are light. In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with The difference between heavy and light frequently determines which syllables receive stress—this is the case in Latin and Arabic, for example. In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language In moraic theory, heavy syllables are said to have two moras, while light syllables are said to have one. Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in Phonology that determines Syllable weight (which in turn determines stress Japanese is generally described this way. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities

In other languages, including English, a consonant may be analyzed as acting simultaneously as the coda of one syllable and the onset of the following syllable, a phenomenon known as ambisyllabicity. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Examples occurring in Received Pronunciation include words such as arrow [ˈærəʊ], error [ˈerə], mirror [ˈmɪrə], borrow [ˈbɒrəʊ], burrow [ˈbʌrəʊ], which can't be divided into separately pronounceable syllables: neither [æ] nor [ær] is a possible independent syllable, and likewise with the other short vowels [e ɪ ɒ ʌ]. Received Pronunciation ( RP) is a form of Pronunciation of the English language (specifically British English) which has long been perceived as

Syllables and suprasegmentals

The domain of suprasegmental features is the syllable and not a specific sound, that is to say, they affect all the segments of a syllable:

Sometimes syllable length is also counted as a suprasegmental feature; for example, in most Germanic languages, long vowels may only exist with short consonants and vice versa. In Linguistics, prosody (from Greek προσωδία) is the Rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words In Linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments in the rime. However, syllables can be analyzed as compositions of long and short phonemes, as in Finnish and Japanese, where consonant gemination and vowel length are independent.

Syllables and phonotactic constraints

Phonotactic rules determine which sounds are allowed or disallowed in each part of the syllable. Phonotactics (in Greek phone = voice and tactic = course is a branch of Phonology that deals with restrictions in a Language on the English allows very complicated syllables; syllables may begin with up to three consonants (as in string or splash), and occasionally end with as many as four (as in prompts). English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Many other languages are much more restricted; Japanese, for example, only allows /n/ and a chroneme in a coda, and has no consonant clusters at all, as the onset is composed of at most one consonant. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities In linguistics a chroneme is a basic theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant

There are languages that forbid empty onsets, such as Hebrew, Arabic, Persian (the names transliterated as "Israel", "Abraham", "Omar", "Ali" and "Abdullah", among many others, actually begin with semiconsonantic glides or with glottal or pharyngeal consonants). Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language

Phonotactics is the micro-level study of the structure of syllables that aims to explore how well-formed the syllables of a language are. A macro-level study of the syllables that aims to examine the constraints on the combinatory possibilities of syllables, their positions of occurrence and possible order in the word is called Syllabotactics. Syllabotactics was introduced to the domain of phonology by S

Syllabification

Main article: Syllabification

Syllabification is the separation of a word into syllables, whether spoken or written. Syllabification is the separation of a word into Syllables whether spoken or written In most languages, the actually spoken syllables are the basis of syllabification in writing too. However, due to the very weak correspondence between sounds and letters in the spelling of modern English, for example, written syllabification in English has to be based mostly on etymological i. e. morphological instead of phonetic principles. English "written" syllables therefore do not correspond to the actually spoken syllables of the living language.

(Syllabification may also mean the process of a consonant becoming a syllable nucleus. )

Syllables and stress

Syllable structure often interacts with stress. In Latin, for example, stress is regularly determined by syllable weight, a syllable counting as heavy if it has at least one of the following:

In each case the syllable is considered to have two moras. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. In Linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments in the rime. Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in Phonology that determines Syllable weight (which in turn determines stress

Syllables and vowel tenseness

In most Germanic languages, lax vowels can only occur in closed syllables. The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. In Phonology, tenseness is a particular Vowel or Consonant quality that is phonemically contrastive in many languages including English Therefore, these vowels are also called checked vowels, as opposed to the tense vowels that are called free vowels because they can occur in open syllables.

Syllable-less languages

The notion of syllable is challenged by languages that allow long strings of consonants without any intervening vowel or sonorant. Languages of the Northwest coast of North America, including Salishan and Wakashan languages, are famous for this. This article is about the Salish/Salishan language For the Tacoma Washington neighborhood see Salishan Tacoma Washington. Wakashan is a family of languages spoken in British Columbia around and on Vancouver Island, and in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of For instance, these Nuxálk (Bella Coola) words contain only obstruents:

[ɬχʷtɬʦxʷ] 'you spat on me'
[ʦ’ktskʷʦʼ] 'he arrived'
[xɬpʼχʷɬtɬpɬɬs] 'he had in his possession a bunchberry plant' (Bagemihl 1991:589, 593, 627)
[sxs] 'seal blubber'

In Bagemihl's survey of previous analyses, he finds that the word [ʦ’ktskʷʦ’] would have been parsed into 0, 2, 3, 5, or 6 syllables depending which analysis is used. Nuxálk (also Bella Coola) is a Salishan language spoken in the vicinity of the Canadian town Bella Coola British Columbia by approximately In Phonetics, articulation may be divided into two large classes obstruents and Sonorants An obstruent is a Consonant sound formed by One analysis would consider all vowel and consonants segments as syllable nuclei, another would consider only a small subset as nuclei candidates, and another would simply deny the existence of syllables completely.

This type of phenomenon has also been reported in Berber languages (such as Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber) and Mon-Khmer languages (such as Semai, Temiar, Kammu). Nomenclature The term Berber has been used in Europe since at least the 17th century and is still used today The Mon-Khmer languages are the autochthonous Language family of Southeast Asia. The Semai are a semisedentary people living in the center of the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia. The Khmu language is the language of the Khmu people of the northern Laos region Even in English there are a few utterances that have no vowels; for example, shh (meaning "be quiet") and psst (a sound used to attract attention).

Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber:

[tftktst tfktstt] 'you sprained it and then gave it'
[rkkm] 'rot' (imperf. ) (Dell & Elmedlaoui 1985, 1988)

Semai:

[kckmrʔɛːc] 'short, fat arms' (Sloan 1988)

See also

External links

References and recommended reading

  1. ^ Geoffrey Blainey, A Short History of the World, p. Professor Geoffrey Blainey AC (born 11 March 1930) is an Australian Historian. A Short History of the World is a general history non-fiction book written by Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey. 87, citing J. T. Hooker et al. , Reading the Past: Ancient Writing from Cuneiform to the Alphabet, British Museum, 1993, Ch. The British Museum is a Museum of human history and culture in London. 2

Dictionary

syllable

-noun

  1. (linguistics) A unit of human speech that is interpreted by the listener as a single sound, although syllables usually consist of one or more vowel sounds, either alone or combined with the sound of one or more consonants; a word consists of one or more syllables.
  2. The written representation of a given pronounced syllable.
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