Different theories of Rhythmical and Syntactic Structure of Connected speech

Syntactic content of syntagm

The functions of syntagm

Different theories of Rhythmical and Syntactic Structure of Connected speech

Outline

XI. Rhythmical and Syntactic Structure of Connected speech

Questions

1) What is a syllable?

2) How many aspects does the problem of the syllable have?

3) What is the relative sonority theory/ the prominence theory based upon?

4) Give the two extreme points of the sonority scale. What is the theory’s drawback?

5) Who put forward the muscular tension theory?

6) How does muscular tension impulses occur in speaking? What corresponds to points of syllabic division?

7) How can consonants be pronounced?

8) Where do initially strong consonants and finally strong consonants occur?

9) What is the drawback of this theory?

10) What other theories of syllable formation do you know?

11) How is the syllable formed in English?

12) What types of syllables are there in English?

13) Name structural types of syllables in terms of C and V?

14) What are the commonest types of the syllable in English structurally?

15) What is the characteristic feature of English according to the number of syllables in words?

16) What is the division of a word into syllables called?

17) What can be said about the question of syllabification in English?

18) What is the phonotactic constraint on syllabification?

19) What are basic rules of phonetic (spoken) syllable division?

20) What is the most general principle the division of words into syllables in writing based on?

21) How many functions does the syllable perform phonologically?

It has long been observed that when people speak the speech is divided rhythmically into different units. These units which were at first considered to be purely rhythmical were later analyzed to be semantic and syntactic and attracted the attention and interest of a number of linguists. As a result very many terms have come into existence, for example in Western Europe: breath group, sense group. Russian linguists have used almost the same terminology: дыхательная группа, смысловая группа, речевой такт, речевое звено. Vostokov was the first to work out the theory of prosodic periods.

The most widely used term is a sense group because it calls attention to the principal peculiarities of syntagm, i.e. to the fact that syntagm is a group of words which are put together according to sense. The term breath group cannot be recommended because it is ambiguous.

The term syntagm which is preferables to other terms has however one serious drawback. It has been used by Baudouin-de-Courtenay and Ferdinand de Saussure in two different meanings.

Baudouin-de-Courtenay used the term “syntagm” to mean a word when it is used in a sentence in contradiction to a word used separately. For example, do, this – separate words; I 'do this – a syntagm.

Ferdinand de Saussure used the term “syntagm” to mean two or more linguistic elements joined together: two successive morphemes or two elements in compound word, or a noun with attribute, or a whole sentence may be called syntagms.

L.V. Scerba eyes this term in a different sense. His syntagm theory is based on the syntactic and semantic relations of words which are expressed phonetically. L.V. Scerba points out that a syntagm is distinguished by strengthening of the last stress as well as by a certain typical intonation.

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