The Syllable and the Syllabification

By
Karrar Muhammad Jebr

Syllable a unit of speech consisting minimally of one vowel and

maximally of a vowel preceded by a consonant or consonant cluster and
followed by a consonant or consonant cluster. For example, the English
word introductions consists of four syllables: in-tro-duc-tions (Richards
and Schmidt, 2012: 576).
Syllabification is the process of dividing a word up into syllables. For
example, locomotive can be divided up into four syllables: lo-co-mo-
tive.The syllabification of the spelling of a word can differ from the syllabi-
fication of its pronunciation. For example, in
styl-is-tics /staiclistiks/ the first syllable of the spelling is styl, but the first
syllable of the pronunciation is /stai-/(Richards and Schmidt, 2012: 575).

According to Crystal, syllable is a unit of pronunciation typically larger

than a single sound and smaller than a word. A word may be pronounced
‘syllable at a time’, as in ne-ver-the-less, and a good dictionary will
indicate where these syllabic divisions occur in writing, thus providing
information about how a word may be hyphenated. Therefore,
Syllabification is defined as the term, which refers to the division of a word
into syllables (Crystal, 2008: 467).

A syllable is a unit of phonological organization whose central

component is a nucleus, which is normally a vowel, and which may be
preceded or followed by consonants. The most basic kind of syllable is the
CV (Consonant-Vowel) syllable (e.g. [ba]). This is the kind of syllable
attested in the babbling stage of child development. Some languages
contain only CV syllables, (Carr, 2008:171).
 Syllables are claimed to be the most basic unit in speech. Every
language has syllables, and babies learn to produce syllables before they
can manage to say a word of their native language. When a person has a
speech disorder, their speech will still display syllabic organisation, and
slips of the tongue also show that syllabic regularity tends to be preserved
even in “faulty” speech, (Roach, 2009:85).

Types of Syllables

1. Monosyllabic
A word consisting of one syllable. E.g. Or
2. Disyllabic
A word consisting of two syllables. E.g. garden
3. Polysyllabic
A word consisting of three or more syllables, alternately named
‘multi-syllable’.
E.g. Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
Constituents of the syllable

Syllables have internal structure that can be divided into parts. These
parts are onset and rhyme; within rhyme, you can find nucleus and coda. It
is important to point out that not all syllables have all these parts; the
smallest possible syllable contains a nucleus only. Simply, onset means the
beginning sounds of the syllable; the ones preceding the nucleus. These are
always consonants in English.
 Syllables which contain no coda consonants are open syllables, as in
the English word bee (/bi:/). Syllables which contain one or more coda
consonants are closed syllables, as in the English word but. Syllables that
lack an onset consonant are said to have an empty onset, as in the English
word eye (/ai/). Empty onsets are said to be involved in the process of
resyllabification, whereby a consonant which might otherwise occupy a
coda position comes to occupy a following onset position, as in the
sequence green eye, syllabified as /gri:.nai/ (where the full stop represents
a syllable boundary), (Carr ,2008:171).

The syllable might be defined both phonetically and phonologically as

follows:
Phonetically: syllables in relation to the way we produce them and the way
they sound are usually described as consisting of a center which has little
or no obstruction to airflow and which sounds comparatively loud; before
and after the center, there will be greater obstruction to airflow and/or less
loud (Roach, 2009: 56)
Examples:
• A minimum syllable: One vowel in isolation preceded and followed
by silence. The word are, /a:/.
• A syllable with onset, a vowel preceded by one or more consonants.
The word Key, /ki:/.
• A syllable with coda, a consonant or more after the vowel, but no
onset. The word Ease, /i:z/.
• A syllable with onset and coda. The word, Fill, /fil/.

Phonologically: Looking at the syllable from this point of view means

considering the possible combinations of English phonemes. In other
words knows as, Phonotactics.
 Phonotactics is the arrangements of the distinctive sound units
(PHONEMEs) in a language. The consonant groups (CONSONANT
CLUSTERs) /spr/ and /str/ can occur at the beginning of a word, as in
sprout, strain, but they cannot occur at the end of a word. (Richards &
Schmidt: 2010).
Phonotactics is a term used in phonology to refer to the sequential
arrangements (or tactic behavior) of phonological units which occur in a
language – what counts as a phonologically well-formed word. (Crystal:
2008).
It is rather problematic to identify the clear-cut line denoting the
border of the syllables when we have diphthong in the word. It shows in
the matter of deciding where the division can occur between syllables as in
the word: going /gәuiŋ/. Deciding whether the vowel /u/ in the diphthong
/әu/ belongs to the first or the second syllable is usually the problem.
The same problem with the word: extra /ekstrә/, the sound /s/ is in the
middle between the /k/ and /t/. All English speakers would agree that the
word has two syllables but the place of the possible division is what makes
it problematic. It might be uttered as follows:
/e-kstrә/, /ek-strә/, /eks-trә/, /ekst-rә/, /ekstr-ә/.

The structure of English Syllable

Technically, the basic elements of the syllable are the onset (one or more
consonants) followed by the rhyme. The rhyme (sometimes written as
“rime”) consists of a vowel, which is treated as the nucleus, plus any
following consonant(s), described as the coda.
 Syllables like me, to or no have an onset and a nucleus, but no coda.
They are known as open syllables. When a coda is present, as in the syllable
sup,cup,at or hat,they are called closed syllables.

It is important to study syllables according to the relationship between

them and their distributions.
Onset may consist of:
1. One consonant e.g. book /buk/
2. Two consonants or consonant cluster begin with /s/ or /p/ as in slip
/slip/ and play /plei/.
It might be classified as:
• Two consonants: s+ other consonant e.g. stop /stɒp/, the sound
/s/ is called pre-initial and the sound /t/ is considered as initial.
• Consonant other than /s/ e.g. play /plei/, the /p/ is initial and the
/l/ is post initial.
3. Onset with three consonants (CCC): Onset of three consonants
usually begins with /s/ sound, which is called a pre-initial as in
spring /sprinŋ/.

Onset + Center + Coda:

 • Coda with one C e.g. seat /si:t/, the C is called final consonant.
• Coda with two consonants CC:
a. Pre-final consonant: usually with /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /l/ and /s/, e.g.
gold /gold/, seats /si:ts/.
b. Final consonants: Other than the above sounds, they will be
final + post final e.g. month /mʌnθ/, aks /æks/. It is always

with suffix /s/, /z/, /t/, /d/, and /θ/.

• Coda with three consonants CCC:
a. Pre-final + final + post-final, months /m ʌ n θ s/.
b. Final + post-final1 + post-final 2, texts /tekst/, fifths /fifθs/,
fixed /fikst/.

• Coda with four consonants CCCC

a. Pre-final + final + post-final1 + post-final2,
twelfths /twelfθs/, prompts /prompts/.
b. Final + post-final1 + post-final2 + post-final3,
sixths /siksθs/.
If the sounds /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /l/and /s/ occur as first consonant in the coda they
are always pre-final.

Syllable weight

The major distinction drawn between syllable types found in

languages has been between open syllables and closed syllables. An open
syllable ends in a vowel while a closed syllable ends in a consonant. In
some languages syllables typically end in a vowel, i.e., they are open. That
is the situation in languages like Japanese. In other languages, Like French
and English, syllables can end in a consonant. However, even in those
languages, which allow closed syllables, there is often a clear preference
for open ones.

There is a second distinction denoting the light and heavy syllables.

A light syllable contains only a short vowel in the rhyme, with no coda, as
in the first syllable of potato, report, about. Although the first two cases
have onsets, and the third does not, all these initial syllables are still light,
because onsets are entirely irrelevant to the calculation of syllable weight.
If a syllable has a complex rhyme, then it is heavy; and complexity can be
achieved in two different ways. First, a heavy syllable may have a short
vowel, but one or more coda consonants, as in bet, best. Second, it may
have a branching nucleus, consisting of a long vowel or diphthong; such a
syllable will be heavy whether it also has a filled coda, as in beast, bite, or
not, as in bee, by.

Syllable weight is a major factor in determining the position of stress

in a word: essentially, no stressed syllable in English may be light. This
means that no lexical word, or full word of English can consist only of a
short vowel alone, with or without an onset, since such words, including
nouns, verbs and adjectives, must be able to bear stress: thus, there are
words such as be, say, loss, but not *[b‫]׀‬, *[sε], *[lɒ]. On the other hand,
function words like the indefinite article a, or the pronunciation [tә] for the
preposition to, which are part of the grammatical structure of sentences and
are characteristically unstressed, can be light. In cases where these do
attract stress, they have special pronunciations [e‫ ]׀‬and [tu:], where the
vowel is long, the nucleus branches, and the syllable is therefore heavy.
(McMahon 2002)
Strong and Weak Syllables
Syllables may sound stronger or weaker according to the tone they
bear. It is almost certainly true that in all languages, some syllables are in
some sense stronger than other syllables; these are syllables that have the
potential to be described as stressed. It is also probably true that the
difference between strong and weak syllable is of some linguistic
importance in every language, however, strong and weak syllables do not
occur at random.

Weak Syllable
The syllable becomes weak when we find the following four cases:
1. The vowel /ә/ (schwa), as being half way between front and
back. e.g. better /betә/, open /әʊpәn/.
2. A close front unrounded vowel in the general area of /i:/ and
/ɪ/, it is neither long /i:/ nor short /ɪ/. The symbol used is /i/,
e.g. happy /hæpi/.
3. A close rounded vowel in the general area of /u:/ and /ʊ/. The
symbol used is /u/, e.g. thank you /θænk ju/
4. A syllabic consonant after another consonant. These
consonants are: /ḷ/, /ṃ/, /ṇ/, /ṛ/ and /ŋ/, e.g. bottle /botḷ/,
threaten /θretṇ/, history /histṛi/, and thicken /θɪkŋ/.

Syllabic Consonants

There are syllables in which no vowel is found and even then, they are
considered weak syllables. In these cases, a consonant, either /ḷ/, /ṃ/, /ṇ/,
/ŋ/, or /ṛ/, stands as the center of the syllable instead of the vowel. It is usual
to indicate that a consonant is syllabic by means of small vertical mark
under the sound, for example:
cattle / kætḷ /
bottle /botḷ/
able /eɪbḷ/
little /lɪtḷ/
happen can be pronounced as /hæpәn/ or /hæpṇ/ or /hæpṃ/
button /bʌtṇ/
broken /brәʊkŋ/
syllabic /r/ occurs in words like:
history /hɪstṛi/
Hungary /hʌŋṛi/

It is unusual to find two syllabic consonants together but sometimes a

speaker may pronounce the word “national” as /næʃṇḷ/, “literal” /lɪtṛḷ/,
“visionary” /vɪӡṇṛi/ and the word “veteran” /vetṛṇ/. In colloquial English,
it is often more or less a matter of arbitrary choice, how one transcribes
such words.
References

1. Carr, A Glossary of Phonology, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University

Press, 2008.
2. Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 6thed, Oxford:
Blackwell publishing Ltd, 2008.
3. Mcmahon, An Introduction to English Phonology. Edinburgh,
Edinburgh University Press, 2002.
4. Richards and Schmidt, Longman Dictionary of LANGUAGE
TEACHING AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS, London, Pearson
Education Limited, 3rd ed, 2012.
5. Roach, A little Encyclopedia of Phonetics, 2009
6. Roach, English Phonetics and Phonology, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 4th ed, 2009.

7. Yule, The study of Language, New York, Cambridge University

Press, 2010.