Chapter 7: Beyond the segment: Syllable structure in English

7.1. The Syllable: a fundamental phonological unit in any language.

A tentative definition
7.2. The structure of the syllable. Phonotactic constraints
7.3 The importance of segmental sonority for the syllable structure
7.4. Constraints on onsets
7.5. Constraints on codas
7.6. Syllabic consonants. Non-vocalic nuclei
7.7. Syllabification in English

7.3 The importance of segmental sonority for the syllable

structure

We have already shown that prominence or sonority is a feature that creates a

hierarchy among speech sounds, the vowels occupying the highest position on the scale.
The nucleus or the vowel of the syllable is then the most sonorous element within the
syllable, or the sonority peak of the syllable, all the other consonantal elements in either
the onset or the coda being situated lower in the hierarchy. If we were to represent the
variation in sonority of the sounds in an utterance we will get something of an undulating,
sinuous representation with ups and downs, generated by the succession of vowel nuclei
and consonantal onsets and codas. On the scale of sonority mentioned above, the highest
position will be held by vowels, then come the glides and liquids followed by the nasals
as the least sonorous of the sonorants. Among the obstruents, the fricatives and the
affricates are a degree higher than the plosives, which are at the bottom of the scale.
Within each class of obstruents, voiced sounds are obviously more sonorous than their
voiceless counterparts, while an open vowel will be more sonorous than a mid one and
the latter will have a higher degree of sonority than a close one. Here is how the above
mentioned scale looks (the bigger the figure on the left, the higher the degree of
sonority):

6. Vowels

SONORANTS 5. Glides

(6-3) 4. Liquids

3. Nasals

OBSTRUENTS 2 Fricatives/Affricates
 (2-1) 1. Plosives
The scale above will be of much help to us in explaining the strategy on the basis
of which syllables are constructed in various languages and in English in particular. The
name we use for the way in which the sounds are ordered in a linguistic structure is, as
we mentioned above, phonotactics and it is highly language specific, though, of course,
some general principles represent language universals.
Having established that the peak of sonority in a syllable is its nucleus which is a
short or long monophthong or a diphthong (we’ll see that in English, some other sounds
that occupy high positions on the sonority scale can take the place of vowels as syllable
nuclei) we are going to have a closer look at the manner in which the onset and the coda
of an English syllable, respectively, can be structured. Even without having any linguistic
training most people will intuitively be aware of the fact that a succession of sounds like
plgndvr cannot occupy the syllable initial position in any language, not only in English.
On the other hand, while words like vlagă, vrajă, zgardă, zgură, ştiulete, şperaclu,
şmotru, cneaz, psihologie etc., are perfectly acceptable in Romanian, no English word
begins with vl, vr, zg, •t, •p, •m, kn, ps. Conversely, English affricates can occur in
syllable final position as codas of those syllables – catch, bridge - while in Romanian
they must be followed either by a palatal sound or a front vowel: maci, regi, micii, legii.
The examples above show that all languages impose constraints on both syllable
onsets and codas. Some of them seem to be universal, that is all languages will rule out
certain sequences, others are language-specific. After a brief review of the restrictions
imposed by English on its onsets and codas we’ll see how these restrictions operate and
how syllable division or certain phonological transformations will take care that these
constraints should be observed. What we are going to analyze will be how unacceptable
consonantal sequences will be split by either syllabification or by vowel insertion. We’ll
scan the word and if several nuclei are identified, the intervocalic consonants will be
assigned to either the coda of the preceding syllable or the onset of the following one. We
will call this the syllabification algorithm. In order that this operation of parsing take
place accurately we’ll have to decide if onset formation or coda formation is more
important, in other words, if a sequence of consonants can be acceptably split in several
ways, shall we give more importance to the formation of the onset of the following
syllable or to the coda of the preceding one? As we are going to see, onsets have priority
over codas, presumably because the core syllabic structure is CV in any language.