Theories on syllable formation and division

The structure and functions of syllables in English

Principal theories on syllable formation and division

Outline

X. The syllabic structure in English

Questions

1) Define sound alternations.

2) What are historical alternations?

3) Define morphophonemics.

4) What is phonemic neutralization?

Speech is a continuum. However, it can be broken into minimal pronounceable units in which sounds show a tendency to cluster or group themselves. These smallest phonetic groups are generally called syllables.

The syllable is one or more speech sounds forming a single uninterrupted unit of utterance which may be a commonly recognized subdivision of a word or the whole of a word [Wells 2000: 758]. Being the smallest pronounceable units, the syllables form language units of greater magnitude, that is morphemes, words and phrases. Each of these units is characterized by a certain syllabic structure.

The syllable is a fairly complicated phenomenon and like the phoneme it can be studied on four levels: acoustic, articulatory, auditory and functional.

I. Talking about the analysis of articulatory aspect of the syllable we could start with the so-called expiratory, or chest pulse or pressure theory by R.H. Stetson. This theory is based on the assumption that expiration in speech is a pulsating process and each syllable should correspond to a single expiration. This theory was strongly criticized by linguists. G.P. Torsuev, for example, writes that in a phrase a number of words and consequently syllables can be pronounced with a single expiration [Торсуев 1960]. This fact makes the validity of the pulse theory doubtful.

II. Another theory most often referred to is the theory of syllable put forward by O. Jespersen. It is generally called the sonority theory / the prominence theory and is based on the concept of sonority. Otto Jespersen has proved that the least sonorous sounds are those for which the mouth is closed (voiceless oral stops), while the most sonorous sounds are those for which the mouth is wide open (low vowels). All other sounds are ranked in between these two extreme points of the sonority scale: (from the highest degree to the lowest):

1. Low vowels (a:, ɔ..).

2. High vowels (i:, i....)

3. Semivowels (j, w)

4. Liquids (1, r)

5. Nasals (m, n, ŋ)

6. Fricatives (voiced) (v, z, ð)

7. Fricatives (voiceless) (f, θ, s)

8. Oral stops (voiced) (b, d, g)

9. Oral stops (voiceless) (p, t, k)

By this theory the syllable is treated as the combination of a more sonorous sound with a less sonorous one. All the sounds with the greatest degree of sonority (vowels and sonorants) are at the peak of the syllable. According to V.A. Vassilyev, the most serious drawback of this theory is that it fails to explain the actual mechanism of syllable formation and syllable division.

III. Academician L.V. Shcherba put forward the theory of muscular tension. He explained syllable formation by muscular tension impulses and three types of consonants. In speaking, muscular tension impulses follow one another. Each impulse has its strongest point – the peak of prominence – and its weakest prominence – the valley of prominence. Valleys of prominence correspond to points of syllabic division. The end of one syllable and the beginning of the next one can be ascertained by determining the type of consonants which take part in forming the syllables.

Consonants may be pronounced:

1) initially strong – the beginning of a consonant may be more energetic, while the end may be weaker (e.g. i t, u s, a dd);

2) finally strong – the beginning of the consonant may be weak, and its end more energetic (e.g. m ay, t ea);

3) geminate or double – both the beginning and the end are energetic with a weakening of muscular tension in the middle, acoustically, they give the impression of two consonants (e.g. pe n - kn ife [n:], mi dd ay [d:]).

The more energetic part of a consonant is attached to a vowel, so that initially strong C occurs at the end of a close syllable, while finally strong C occurs at the beginning of a syllable.

His theory again does not give a complete explanation of the syllable division mechanism.

IV. The linguist and psychologist N.I. Zhinkin has suggested the so-called loudness theory which seems to combine levels of production or perception. The experiments carried out by N.I. Zhinkin showed that the syllable could be thought of as the arc of loudness which correlates with the arc of articulatory effort on the speech production level since variations in loudness are due to the work of all the speech mechanisms. In other words, syllables are due to a rise and fall of the loudness.

It is perfectly obvious that no phonetician has succeeded so far in giving an adequate explanation of what the syllable is. The difficulties seem to arise from the various possibilities of approach to the unit. There exist two points of view:

1. Sоme linguists consider the syllable to be a purely articulatory unit which lacks any functional value. This point of view is defended on the ground that the boundaries of syllables do not always coincide with those of morphemes.

2. However the majority of linguists treat the syllable as the smallest pronounceable unit which can reveal some linguistic function.

Trying to define the syllable from articulatory point of view we may talk about universals. When we mean the functional aspect of the syllable, it should be defined with the reference to the structure of one particular language.

The definition of the syllable from the functional point of view tends to single out the following features of the syllable:

a) a syllable is a chain of phonemes of varying length;

b) a syllable is constructed on the basis of contrast of its constituents (which is usually of vowel - consonant type);

c) the nucleus of a syllable is a vowel, the presence of consonants is optional; there are no languages in which vowels are not used as syllable nuclei, however, there are languages in which this function is performed by consonants;

d) the distribution of phonemes in the syllabic structure follows by the rules which are specific enough for a particular language.

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