There are 4 types of syllable
Lecture 3.
- The syllable as the phonological unit.
- Theories on the syllable division
- Types and functions of the syllable.
- Word stress, its nature and functions.
- Utterance, logical and emphatic stress.
SYLLABLE
Syllableis the smallest pronounceable unit which forms language units of greater magnitud (morphemes, words and phonemes).
The syllable can be considered as the phonetic and phonological unit.
As the phonetic unit the syllable is defined in articulatory, auditory and acoustic terms.
Acoustically and auditory the syllables are characteristic by prosodic features:
- the force of the utterance
- the pitch of voice
- sonority
- length
Phonologically the syllable is regarded and defined in terms of its structural and functional properties. The term "syllable" denotes smth. taken together.
PHONETIC ASPECT
There are different points of view on syllable formation.
1. There are as many syllable in a word as there are vowels.(but in some languages consonants can be syllabic and it doesn't explain the boundary of syllable.)
2. Expiratory (shest-puls or pressure) theory. Syllable is a sound or group of the sounds that are pronounced in one chest-puls . There are as many syllables in a word as there are chest-pulses made during the word .
The border line between the syllables is a moment of the weaker expiration (it is quite possible possible to pronounce some syllables in one articulatory effort).
3. The relative sonority theory (гучності) or the prominence theory. It was created by Danish phonetician O.Jespersen. It is based upon the fact that each sound was a definite carrying power.
Sounds group themselves according to their sonority. There are as many syllables as there are peaks of prominence of sonority.
O.Jespersen classified sounds according to the degree of sonority. He stayed the scale of sonority of sounds. The most sonor are vowels. The less sonor are sonorants . The least sonor consonants are voiced and voiceless.
1. open vowels
2. closed vowels
3. sonorants
4. voiced fricatives
5. voiced plosives
6. voiceless fricatives
7. voiceless plosives
The most sonor sound form the peak of sonority in a syllable. One peak is separated from another peak by sound of lower sonority that is consonant.
melt metl s dn
(it doesn't explain the mechanism )of syllable division and formation and it doesn't state to which syllable the less sonorant sound at the boundary of two words belongs
an aim
a name
summer dresses
some addresses
The muscular tension or the articulatory effort theory.
A syllable is characteristic by variations in muscular tension . The energy of articulation increases at the beginning of the syllable reaches its maximum within a vowel sound and decreases towards the end of the syllable.
P l a n t
The syllable is defined as an arc are of artificial tension. The boundary is determined by lowest articulatory energy. There are as many syllables as there are max of muscular tension.
Consonants within a syllable are characteristic by different distribution of muscular tension.
Scherba advanced the theory about 3 types of consonants :
- finally strong (initially weak) . The end of the syllable is more energetic. They occur at the beginning of the syllable /si:/ - cv
- finally weak (initially strong). The beginning is more energetic, the end is weaker. It occurs at the beginning of the syllable. /at/ - vc
- double peak. The beginning and the end are energetic, while the middle is weak. It occurs at the junction of the words or morphemes: what time /wtam/, unknown /nn/. Acoustically they produce an effect of 2 consonants.
5. Loudness theory. It was worked out by N.I.Zhinkin. It took into consideration Scherba's statement about peaks. It takes into consideration both levels production and perception. Syllable is an arc of loudness.
The peak of the syllable is louder and higher in pitch than the slopes. Zhinkin proved that the organ which is responsible for the variation of loudness is pharynx . There are as many syllables in a word as there are arcs of loudness.
STRUCTURAL ASPECT
In English syllable is formed:
- by any vowel (monophthong or diphthong ) alone or in the combination with one or more consonants,eg.:/:/, /hi:/;
- by a word final sonorant /m, n, l/ immediately preceded by a noise consonant and posttonic ,eg.:/r-ðm/, /g:-dn/.
Note: /m, n, l/ may loose their syllabic character when they occur in the middle of the word before a vowel,eg.:/ls-n/, /sænd/
There are 4 types of syllable
- opened CV
-closed VC
- covered CV(C)
- uncovered V(C)
The fundamental type is closed. Due to the member arrangement the structure of the syllable varies
- v - occurs alone
- cccvcc
- cvccccc
cvc - the most frequent pattern , as to the member of syllable it can vary from 1 to 8 (unintelligibility -/nntlblt/ - vcvccvcvcvcvcvcv).
The consonant / / never begins the syllable and /w/ never ends the syllable such clusters as / mh, sr, s, fs, hr, stl, spw/ can't occur initially either.
The sounds /w, r, j/ despite their strong vocalic characteristics, function as a consonants.
The sounds /l, m, n/ normally function as consonants before a vowel, but in unstressed final position when preceded by a noise consonant they are syllabic.
SYLLABLE DIVISION
The part of phonetics that deals with the aspect of syllable division is called phonotactics.Phonotactic possibilities of a language determine the rules of syllable division. As the phoneticians point out, in the English language the problem of syllable division exists in case of intervocalic consonants and their clusters.
When there is one intervocalic consonant the rules are following:
1. The English long monophthongs , diphthongs and unstressed short vowels always occur in a phonetically open syllables, when they are separated from a following syllabic sound by only one consonant,eg.:/mi:-t/, /:-m/, /:-d-n-r/, /v-sz/.
2. A short stressed vowel in the same position (when separated from a following syllabic sound by only one consonant) always occurs in a closed syllable,eg.:
/st-/, /spæn-/, /fæm--l/.
When there are clusters it is necessary take into consideration that some clusters cannot happen at the beginning of the syllable. Such clusters should be broken by syllabic boundary. Eg. : agree /-gri:/, abrupt /-brpt/, admire /d-ma/.
In case when the number of intervocalic consonants is 3 or more as in the word “extra” there seceral variants of syllabic division: /ek-str/, //eks-tr /, //ekst-r /.
In some cases we may take into consideration the morphemic structure of words. Eg.: standing consists of two syllables, on phonetic grounds /stæn-d/, on grammatical grounds /stænd-/.
These are phonetic syllables, syllables consisting of actually pronounced speech sounds. These phonetic syllables should be not confused with the open and closed syllables in writing. Division of words into syllables in writing is based on morphological principles. The part of the word, which is separated, should be either a prefix, or a suffix, or a root.
Undivided – un-di-vid-ed
Utterance – utter-ance
Smiling – smil-ing, but puzzling –puzz-ling
It is not an easy matter to describe syllable . Some linguists consider syllable as a purely articulatory unit which lacks any functions. But majority threats the syllable as a smallest pronounceable unit which can perform some linguistic functions.
Functions of syllable
- Constitutive function.The syllable forms language units of greater magnitude, that is words, morphemes, and utterances.
2. Distinctive function.The syllable is characterized by its ability to differentiate words and wors-forms.
WORD STRESS
I. The stress in the isolated words is termed as word stress. The stress in the connected speech is turned as a sentence stress.
The auditory impression of word stress is that of prominence and on the auditory level the effect of prominence is produced by a greater degree of loudness, greater length of the stressed syllables some modifications in its pitch and quality.
On the acoustic level the effect of prominence is achieved by following acoustic parameters.
- intensity;
- duration;
- frequency (fundamental);
- formed structure.
Word stress (WS)is the singling out of one or more syllables in a word which is accompanied by the change of the force of utterance, pitch of the voice, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the sound, which is usually a vowel.
In different languages one of the factors constituting the word stress is usually more significant then the others.
1. Dynamic or force stress – if special prominence in a stressed syllable or syllables is achieved by the greater force of articulation, which results in greater loudness on the auditory level and greater intensity on the acoustic level. English, German, French, Russian and all European languages have this stress.
2. Musical or tonic.If special prominence in a stressed syllable is mainly achieved through the change of pitch or musical tone. It is observed in the oriental languages. The meaning of the words in these languages depends on the pitch levels of these syllables. In Scandinavian languages the stress is both dynamic and musical
3. Quantitative.If special prominence in the stressed syllables is achieved through the changes in the quantity of the vowels which are longer in the stressed syllables than in unstressed ones. Ukrainian and Russian WS is considered to be mainly quantitative. In English the quantitative component of word stress is not very important because of the non-reduced vowels in the unstressed syllables, which sometimes occur in English words.
4. Qualitative type of stress is achieved through the changes on the quality of the vowel under stress. It is distinguished because in many languages the quality of vowels in stressed syllables differs greatly of the quality of vowels in unstressed syllables.
English word stress is of a complex nature
- dynamic
- quantitative
- qualitative
Ukrainian word stress is considered to be primarily quantitative and secondary qualitative and dynamic.
IIThe opinions of the phoneticians differ as to how many degrees of stress are linguistically relevant in word. They are linguistically relevant because they help to differentiate the meanings of English words.
1. The British linguists (Johns and Kindong) and Russian (Vassiliev) consider that there are 3 degrees of word stress in English
- primary or strong
- secondary or partial
- weak unstressed syllables
2. American linguists (Glisson, Hill) distinguish 4 degrees of word stress:
- primary
- secondary tertiary
- weak
Secondary stress occurs before the primary stress while tertiary stress occurs after the primary stress. The difference between secondary and tertiary stress is very subtle and subjective. The criteria is very vague. In General American a tertiary stress effects suffixes of nouns: -ary, -ory, -ony and suffixes of verbs : -ate, -ize, -y which are considered unstressed in Received Pronunciation.
'Territory, 'dictionary, 'organize
Tertiary word stress can be taken for a variant of the secondary word stress because there are no words in English of which depend on whether they have secondary or tertiary stress. That is why the stress patterns of English words can be defined as 3 degrees of stress: primary, secondary, weak.
The British conception of 3 degrees is accepted as a teaching law. In Russian and Ukrainian word stressed system there are only 2 degrees – primary and weak.
III. Stress can be fixed and free . In languages with the fixed stress the place of stress is limited to a particular syllable in a multi syllable word. In Finnish, Czech and Slovak the stress always falls on the first syllable. In Italian, Welsh it is on the one but last syllable. In French and Turkish the stress falls on the last syllable.
In languages with a free stress its place is not confined to a specific position in a word.
In English Russian Ukrainian word stress is free. That is it may fall on any syllable in a word.
Besides the word stress in the English, Ukrainian and Russian is not only free but it’s also shifting and it performs the semantic function of differentiating lexical units , parts of speech and grammatical forms:
'Contrast - con'trast
Though English stress is free there are certain factors or tendencies that determine the place and different degree of word stress.
Vassiliev describes them as follows:
- recessive tendency
- rhythmic tendency
- retentive tendency
- semantic factor
1. According to the recessive tendency stress falls on the first syllable which is generally the root syllable . It can be of 2 subtypes:
Unstriked – is observed in the native English words and in the assimilated French borrowings having no prefix. ('mother, 'daughter, 'colour, 'restaurant).
Restricted – is characterized by placing the word accent on the root of the word if this word has a prefix which has lost its meaning (be'come, be'gin, a'way)
2. Rhythmical tendency results in alternating stressed and unstressed syllables. It caused the appearance of the secondary stress in multy-syllabic words
Organi'zation
Revo'lution
According to the rhythmical tendency primary stress is on the third syllable from the end in 3 and 4 syllable words.
'Cinema
'Situate
In'tensity
In words with more than 4 syllables we very often find the influence of both – the rhythmic and recessive tendencies.
Indi'visible
All this variations are accepted in the Johns dictionary.
Under the influence of rhythm the accentual structure of the word can be pronounced with one single stress under the influence of rhythm . The rhythmic stress effects the stress patterns of a great number of words in English
'Pictu'resque
Under the influence of rhythm compounds of 3 elements may have a single stress on the second syllable.
3. Retentive tendency is characteristic by the retention of the primary accent in the derivation on the same syllable on which it falls in the parent word.
'Similar - 'similarly
More commonly the primary stress is retained on the derivative word as the secondary accent
'Similar –simi'larity
'Personal -perso'nality
'Nation –natio'nality
4. According to the semantic tendency words with separate prefixes and compound words have two equally strong stresses
'Un'known
'Twenty 'one
Such prominence is given to negative prefix :
- un, in, mis, anti, non
- ex, vice, sub, under, ultra
- teen
- semantically important element in compound word
'well-'known
A special analysis of English stress was made by Torsuev . He worked out the typology of accentual structure. He distinguishes more then 100 stress patterns, which form 11main types. (Sokolova M.A. A theoretical course, p.127-128)
He classifies them according to the number of stressed syllables, their degree or character (the main and the secondary stress). Accentual types and accentual structures are closely connected with the morphological type of words, with the number of syllables, the semantic value of the root and the prefix of the word.
The accentual types are:
1. / /. (74%)This accentual type marks both simple and compound words. The accentual structures of this type may include two and more syllables, e.g. 'fafher, 'possibly, 'mother-in-law, 'gas-pipe.
2. / /. (20%) The accentual type is commonly realized in compound words, most of them are with separable prefixes, e.g. 'radio-'active, 're'write, 'diso'bey.
3. / / and 4. / /. The accentual types are met in initial compound abbreviations like 'U'S'A, 'U'S'S'R.
5. / /. The type is realized both in simple and compound words, very
common among compound words, e.g. 'hair-,dresser, 'substructure.
6. / /. (3%) The accentual type marks a great number of simple words and some compound words as well. In simple words the stresses fall onto:
1. the prefix and the root: maga'zine;
2. the root and the suffix: ,hospi'tality;
3. the prefix and the suffix: disorganization.
The most widely spread among the enumerated accentual types are supposed to be Type 1, Type 2, Type 5 and Type 6. Each type includes varieties of definite accentual structures with different numbers of syllables and marks thousands of words. So the four of them cover the main bulk of most common English words and are therefore most typical for the English vocabulary.
The variability of the word accentual structure is multiplied in connected speech. The accentual structure of words may be altered under the influence of rhythm, e.g. An 'unpolished 'stone but: The 'stone was un'polished.
The tempo of speech may influence the accentual pattern of words. With the quickening of the speed the carefulness of articulation is diminished, the vowels are reduced or elided, the secondary stress may be dropped, e.g. The 'whole organi'zation of the 'meeting was 'faulty.
IV. Word stress performs:
1. constitutive
2. identificatory or recognative
3. distinctive
1. Word stress constitutes a word. It organizes the syllables of a word into a language unit. A word doesn’t exist without the word stress. Word stress performs the constitutive function.
2. Word stress has this function because the stress patterns of words enable people identify definite combinations of sounds as meaningful linguistic units. A distortion of the stress patterns can hamper understanding or produce the strange accent.
3. Word stress is capable of differentiation the meaning of words and their forms.