English phonetics and phonology (Peter Roach)

8 The syllable

Phonetically syllables are usually described as consisting of a centre which has little or no obstruction to airflow and which sounds comparatively loud;

before and after this centre there will be greater obstruction to airflow and/or less loud sound.

i) What we might call a minimum syllable would be a single vowel in isolation

The study of the possible phoneme combinations of a language is called phonotactics.

If the first syllable of the word in question begins with a vowel we say that this

Initial syllable has a zero onset.

When we have two or more consonants together we call them a consonant cluster.

Initial two-consonant clusters are of two sorts in English.

One sort is composed of s followed by one of a small set of consonants; examples of such clusters are found in words such as ‘sting’ stI ŋ, ‘sway’ sweI, ‘smoke’ sməυk.

The other sort begins with one of a set of about fifteen consonants, followed by one of the set 1, r, w, j as in, for example, ‘play’ pleI, ‘try’ traI, ‘quick’ kwIk, ‘few’ fju:.

We call the first consonant of these clusters the initial consonant and the second the post-initial.

If there is no final consonant we say that there is a zero coda

When there is one consonant only, this is called the final consonant. Any consonant may be a final consonant except h, r, w, j. there are two sorts of two-consonant final cluster,

One being a final consonant preceded by a pre-final consonant and the other a consonants form a small set: m, n, ŋ, l, s. we can see these in ‘bump’

bΛmp, ‘bent’ bent, ‘bank’ bæ ŋk, ‘belt’ belt, ‘ask’ a:sk. The post-final consonants also form a small set: s, z, t, d, θ; example words are: ‘belts’ bets.

There are two types of final three-consonant cluster; the first is prefinal plus final plus post-final.

The second type shows that more than one post-final consonant can occur in a final cluster: final plus post-final l plus post-final 2. post-final 2 is again one of s, z, t, d, θ.