Talk:Syllable

Remove belittled

I removed belittled from the examples of syllables that end with three or four consonants. Dictionary.com says it's be-lit-tled. I substituted strength, which is one syllable. —Triskaideka 15:20, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

'tled' is three consonants, though - t (dark-)l and d. 'Strength', on the other hand, (at least in most standard varieties of English) only two consonants clustered at the end: ng and th. (strength alone would qualify only if pronounced with a hard g, which, while I am aware this pronunciation exists, AFAIK it isn't standard in any English variety). strengths would qualify, though. Firejuggler86 (talk) 11:28, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

sixths ends with four letters, but it does not contain 4 separate sounds (as english orthography and phonetics do not match up), and should be removed from the list of four-consonant-endings.

Funnily enough it does contain four sounds (k s th s), but not divided the same way as the letters. −Woodstone 16:56, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Similarly, I replace strongest with stoutest, so that the onset exactly matches the coda. Is there a 3-phoneme cluster that serves as onset and coda in the ssame word? -- Solo Owl 19:36, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Suggestions

Suggestions:

• discuss moras
• light vs. heavy vs. super-heavy syllables
• maybe discuss feet?
• discuss difficulty of defining the term syllable
• mention older definitions (like "chest pulses", etc.)
• add diagram of syllable tree
• how to determine syllable boundaries

- Ish ishwar 18:57, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

Syllable-less language?

I don't know about Bella Coola, but is the given sentence really syllable-less? It seems to me it uses the velarized alveolar lateral approximant [ɫ] as nuclei, exactly like the second syllable of the English word bottle. It is written with ł (&#322), but maybe it's actually ɫ (ɫ). They look so similar it's no wonder there's a confusion. - TAKASUGI Shinji 02:10, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi.

No, the Salishan language family and other languages spoken on the northwest coast of North America have words with no sonorants. The Salishan family is generally the most well-known. These languages challenge the notions of syllable.

Bella Coola (a.k.a. Nuxálk) has, I think, the longest known word in any language that consists only of obstruents. It is often quoted in publications. Which is why I wrote it. (to be dramatic!)

The word xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓ he had had a bunchberry plant in the article is written in Americanist phonetic transcription which is standard for Native American work (IPA being a British(-European) practice). This is the way it is written in the article that I referenced and is probably very similar to the way native speakers write it (assuming, of course, that they write it at all). The other examples in the article are written in standard orthographies as well. An IPA phonetic transcription would be this: [xɬp’χʷɬtɬpɬːskʷʦ’].

Here are some more Bella Coola words for you:

• [ps] 'shape, mold'
• [p’s] 'bend'
• [p’χʷɬt] 'bunchberry'
• [ʦktskʷʦ] 'he arrived'
• [tʦ] 'little boy'
• [skʷp] 'saliva'
• [sps] 'northeast wind'
• [tɬ’p] 'cut with scissors'
• [sʦ’q] 'animal fat'
• [sʦ’qʦtx] 'that's my animal fat over there'
• [tɬ] 'strong'
• [q’t] 'go to shore'
• [qʷt] 'crooked'

You see similar things in the unrelated Wakashan language, Oowekyala (also on northeastern coast):

• [k’ʷs] 'light'
• [qʷsqʷs] 'low mountain blueberry (a.k.a. dwarf blueberry)'
• [ʦ’ɬʦ’kʷ] 'short (plural)'

Here is a word from Klallam, another coastal Salishan language (which is not as extreme as Bella Coola):

• [n̰ʃxʷʧʰɬːq’ʧʰʃɬʃáʔ] 'fifty of them got you'

This Klallam word has two voiced sonorants with 10 phonemic obstruents between them: /ʃ + xʷ + tʃ + ɬ + ɬ + q’ + tʃ + ʃ + ɬ + ʃ/. Where is the division between the 2 syllables? Is it possible to find one?

What about Bella Coola [p’χʷɬt] bunchberry? Does this have no syllables or 4 syllables? One solution is to perhaps treat voiceless fricatives as syllable nuclei. Then [s̩.ps̩] northeast wind would have 2 syllables with syllabic fricatives. But that still leaves [q’t] go to shore.

The Salishan languages are very interesting and pose difficult challenges to linguistic analysis. (Another issue is that it is often claimed that they have no difference between nouns & verbs, so nouns must not be linguistic universals). Sadly, most are severely endangered.

- Ish ishwar 06:40, 2005 Mar 8 (UTC)

References:

• Bach, Emmon; Howe, Darin; & Shaw, Patricia A. (2005). On epenthesis and moraicity in Northern Wakashan. (Paper presented at the 2005 SSILA conference in Oakland, CA).
• Clark, John; & Yallop, Colin. (1995). An introduction to phonetics and phonology (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Montler, Timothy. (2004-2005). (Handouts on Salishan language family).

Thank you very much. It's so interesting to know such exotic languages. - TAKASUGI Shinji 00:04, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

According to syllable@Everything2.com, the Bella Coola word stt has three syllables. See also lateral fricative@Everything2.com, the writer says "you get the glorious hexasyllabic word nujamƛƛƛƛ 'we used to sing'." Isn't it possible to define syllables in Bella Coola? - TAKASUGI Shinji 01:19, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I dont know about that site. They cite references from one secondary source. I suggest that you read the article by Bagemihl if you want to investigate this. Bagemihl gets his data from this grammar:

• Nater, Hank F. (1984). The Bella Coola language. Mercury series; Canadian ethonology service (No. 92). Ottawa: National Museums of Canada.

The real situation is that everyone is trying to figure out how to fit these languages into linguistic theory. These languages do have vowels and other resonants (vowels are most probably a language universal). So, most would say that, of course, syllables exist.

But the problem is these languages' very high tolerance for sequences of obstruents, as you can see above. The questions they pose are

• What kind of segment can constitute a nucleus? (i.e. only accept resonants? or include obstruents too?)
• How complicated should syllables be? (i.e. only CVC or can we admit CCCCCCVC?)
• Should all segments be parsed into syllable structures or can some segments at syllable margins be allowed to remain stray segments?

So, to answer your question: Yes, it is possible to define syllables in Bella Coola. But, what constitutes a syllable will depend on your phonological analysis, as will whether or not the above quoted words have syllables (and if so, how many). Be assured that a good number of people are working on these issues. Peace. - Ish ishwar 06:13, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)

Thanks. I came accross that site when I was looking for another thing, and I just wanted to check the information written there. I don't know about those languages, as I have written. Why don't you add information on Bella Coola syllables in the article?

By the way, thank you for reverting my deletion of [dl] in affricate consonant. I didn't know the same symbol is used for different sounds. - TAKASUGI Shinji 06:44, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, I didnt know that either. I have never seen that symbol refer to a lateral fricative (in fact, I wonder if it is the IPA's error). That symbol is very commonly used in Americanist phonetic transcription to represent a lateral affricate. I think the symbol was first suggested for general use in 1934 in an article in American Anthropologist. The authors of this article say that the symbol was used before to transcribe Eskimo languages in as early as 1928. (By the way, I really dont like the way affricates are transcribed in IPA in they dont adhere to the "one sound = one letter" principle). - Ish ishwar 07:36, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)

Sixths

Does "sixths" really count as a syllable that ends in four consonant phonemes? It's nearly impossible to say 'ksths'. "Prompts", the other example given in the article, is a little easier, but still no one actually fully pronounces the "mpts" when they say the word. Maybe "contexts" would be a better example. Actually, scratch that, no one completely pronounces "ksts" either. I think it's fair to say that English phonlology only allows three consonant sounds in a syllable coda. Morphology may create impossible syllables, but those are simplified when used in spoken English.

Certainly in fast speech, complex codas get simplified, but many people have no trouble pronouncing the full codas of sixths, prompts, and contexts in citation form. It's a bit of a stretch to assert that the full coda completely lacks the sounds that get simplified, when there are plenty of people who do pronounce them. There are probably many people who do reduce the codas even in citation form, so what we have is an example of idiolectical variation. Nohat 17:55, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Latin stress

Stress in Latin is determined by syllable length, with no distiction between syllables having one or more coda(e) and syllables just having a long nucleus. E.g. laudāre and monēre are both stressed on the last but one syllable, even though both -dā- and -nē- have no coda. --FAeR 16:16, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Actually stress in Latin is determined by syllable weight (mora count). See Dreimorengesetz. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 18:28, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Okay, my explanation is just a less erudite, but equivalent version, I guess :) --FAeR 30 June 2005 14:30 (UTC)

Parsed into zero syllables

What the hell is "parsed into 0 syllables" supposed to mean? You can't divide a thing into zero parts. If you refuse to divide something, you have one part, non zero. I corrected that, but Ish ishwar reverted that. --Army1987 09:36, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

means it has no syllables. – ishwar  (speak) 09:42, 2005 August 8 (UTC)

Just to be clear, what Ish means is that the theory that parses the word into 0 syllables is denying the existence of syllables at all (for this language at least). Under such a paradigm, it makes perfect sense to say something has 0 syllables, just as you would say a bunch of bananas can be parsed into 0 apples. Nohat 16:26, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

"is denying the existence of syllables at all (for this language at least)." It's not, it's simply denying their universal application (ie, that all words can be fully parsed into syllables). If you read up more on Bella Coola, for example, you'll find that many processes like reduplication provide evidence for the existence of syllables in Bella Coola, but the language does not require words to be fully (or even partially) parsed into syllables. Basically, any sonorant can serve as a syllabic nucleus (and indeed if a word contains sonorants it must contain at least one syllable), and the maximal syllable is, IIRC, CVC. When a word has no sonorants, none of it is parsed into syllables. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.7.19.42 (talk • contribs) 20:45, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

What's relevant of course is whether syllables are meaningful to speakers of these languages. To my ears, these words do sound like they are fully syllabified. Sequences of voiced plosives are separated by epenthetic schwas, and sequences of voiceless plosives are separated by (epenthetic?) aspiration. I suppose we could argue that the epenthetic vowels and aspiration function as syllabic nuclei, and that in a word like sxs the middle fricative is a nucleus. Either that or syllables are a meaningless concept in these words. Either way, long sequences of stops do not form syllables. kwami 01:51, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem with that analysis for Salishan languages (claiming that stops without a following sonorant, for instance, are basically syllables and thus all words are fully syllabified), is that it makes the analysis of processes like reduplication that are easily explainable in the alternative analysis, which has moraically licenced extra-syllabic consonants, much more awkward and difficult to explain. By this I mean that in the analysis with extra syllable consonants the rules are generally straight-forward rules like "reduplicate the first syllable", whereas you have to say something like "reduplicate the first syllable with a vowel or sonorant as its nucleus, and if there is no such syllable then don't reduplicate anything" and much more complicated things to deal with which parts get reduplicated if you make stops and fricatives syllable nuclei. And then there are issues like the placement of stress which aren't often sensitive to the distribution of the extrasyllabic consonants. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.7.19.42 (talk • contribs) 13:10, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

External references

None of the external references are working, not atleast from my terminal. I suggest some editor, not from IIT Kharagpur, India check if the links are active and accessible. VijitJain 15:17, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

They all work for me in Berlin, Germany. Angr (talk • contribs) 15:22, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Received Pronunciation Examples

In the examples of "ambisyllabicity" from Received British Pronunciation, ([ˈærəʊ], [ˈerə], [ˈmɪrə], [ˈbɒrəʊ], [ˈbʌrəʊ]) it is stated that these words, due to their rhotic elements, cannot be "divided into separately pronounceable syllables." Due to the interaction of phonological rules here, should they be separately pronounceable? While I'm not sure of the official analysis, British English seems to me to have underlying rhotics that cannot surface in coda position, and thus must move to an onset position, when available, before a following vowel. Therefore, though the underlying forms for these vowels could be the diphthongs /ær, eɪ̯r/, the surface forms would split these elements between syllables and have some effect on the diphthongization of /eɪ̯/ (I'm a speaker of North American English, where this would be represented as the diphthong /er̯/, so I'm not sure if this is the general analysis for RP). I'm not sure how well documented a phenomenon ambisyllabicity is, but I'd be interested in hearing what other people think on the subject or what research has been done. This section of the article is not referenced, so I'm not sure if this is widely accepted or if it is some original research, but at first glance such a claim seems like a cop-out.Coyne025 16:12, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I may have got the wrong end of the stick here, but I don't think rhoticism is really all that important in ambisyllabicity. When deciding where to put the syllable boundary in a word, there are several "rules" which are typically followed. One of these rules is "Syllable Onset Maximalism", which basically means that, where possible, consonants should ideally be placed in the onset rather than the coda. This would suggest that in words such as "mirror" ([ˈmɪrə]), the /r/ should form the onset of the second syllable, rather than being a part of the coda of the first. However, the syllabic weighting rule states that a light syllable (i.e. a syllable with only a short vowel sound in the rhyme) cannot be a stress syllable. This means that /r/ must be a part of the coda of the first syllable, as /mɪ/ is unacceptable.

I believe it is for this reason that ambisyllabicity occurs (in most cases, at least). Other examples include [ˈbɒtl], [ˈbʌtə] and so on. In both cases the /t/ is ambisyllabic, as the first syllable is stressed, and without the /t/ in the coda would be light- not acceptable. The result is that the /t/ in both cases must be in both the coda of the first, stressed syllable, and the onset of the second- in other words, it is ambisyllabic. Susai (talk) 15:35, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

[ˈmɪɹ.ɹə] is also a valid realisation and appears in the intuitions of many native speakers when you ask them to parse it. Remember that a non-rhotic accent does not fully realise syllable-final r, but this does not mean it has no effect. 192.76.8.39 (talk) 18:52, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

New article proposal

The Japanese language has only several hundred syllables, Mandarin has around 1280 syllables, and Vietnamese is capable of representing 6200 syllables. I propose an article that is a list of the number of possible syllables in each language.Badagnani 21:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

CARRIED —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.6.166.236 (talk) 00:31, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Is "people" a one-syllable word?

Is "people" a one-syllable word? Many people pronounce the word "people" as a two-syllable word, although dictionaries regard it as a one-syllable word (IPA in the OED: [ˈpiːpl]). Which one is correct? One-syllable or two-syllable? --­ (talk) 02:47, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Two syllables. In full IPA there would be a syllabicity mark under the el in [ˈpiːpl], but the OED doesn't bother with it. kwami (talk) 23:20, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Problem in Syllables and phonotactic constraints

The mention of Japanese was unsourced and seemed to be skating on majorly thin ice, so I cut a few words out. Explanation: first, /n/ does not end a coda. /ɴ/ is the phoneme meant, but it's misleading to say /ɴ/ ends a coda anyway as it's timed as a separate mora. In Japanese, a word root like /ka/, is half as short as /kaɴ/ (and this is crucial to pronunciation, and allows no leeway). Since Japanese is mora-timed, it seems best to avoid this /ɴ/ issue, or if not, avoid Japanese altogether in this article. My personal feeling is that, in Japanese, a mora equals a syllable, i.e. a syllable cannot be longer than a mora. (Ejoty (talk) 09:56, 28 July 2009 (UTC))

A mora does not equal a syllable in Japanese, and /N/ and the geminating chroneme (sometimes called "/Q/") prove it, since they are well-formed moras but not well-formed syllables. There's other evidence too: Junko Itô ("Prosodic minimality in Japanese", Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistic Society 26 (1990), 213-39) discusses how long loanwords in Japanese can be clipped down to two syllables - not necessarily two moras: e.g. /saNdoiti/ "sandwich" can be clipped to /saNdo/, but not */saN/ (likewise /saikederikku/ "psychedelic" can be clipped to /saike/, but not */sai/, because diphthongs are also two moras but not two syllables). +Angr 19:25, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying. Since you have access to those sources, I wish you would add the footnotes. What you're telling me is interpretation and not proof. A syllable is not an absolute concept and applies well to English but not well to other languages, and doesn't apply at all to some. I can say that Japanese has moras and does not have syllables as per my own interpretation. I feel my interpretation is more useful than yours in understanding the language. Think about how the phoneme /N/, pronounced as [m] is used in singing to match one note just the way any other mora, such as /ka/, is used to match a note in the melody. It's just like how you write in kana. /N/ doesn't stick to /ka/ in one beat or burst the way it would in a syllable. I kindly ask you again to please source what you wrote, or cut out the part that's open to interpretation. (Ejoty (talk) 14:05, 29 July 2009 (UTC))

It's true that Japanese assigns one mora per note in singing, and the Japanese kana syllabaries are actually "mora-aries" because each character corresponds to a mora rather than a syllable, but that doesn't mean the concept of the "syllable" is nonexistent or non-useful for Japanese. If Japanese had no syllables, there would be no way to explain the distribution of /N/ and "/Q/" or to explain the truncation facts. I did add a reference for the claim that /N/ appears in the syllable coda; there isn't much more this article says or needs to say about it. More detail should go in Japanese phonology. +Angr 15:07, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Moras are an interesting question in Japanese. How pertinent are they in non-literary situations? Are they a reification of the writing system, itself a product of historical changes where moraic /N/ and /Q/ derive from full CV syllables (at least in native words)? If a few centuries ago Japan had adopted an alphabet and lost its kana, and all mora-based poetry and song, would it be considered today anything other than a syllabic language? kwami (talk) 07:57, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

That's an interesting idea, but speaking and listening to Japanese, it's obvious to me that regardless of kana and poetic traditions, Japanese pronunciation follows moraic boundaries. In short, it would not be considered syllabic. Any change from that would be a change in the language itself and not merely in interpretation. Did you mean the mental affects of writing in an alphabet would replace mora-timing with syllable-timing? Thanks for the reference. I guess there's no problem. However, I would like to say that, in its mention of Japanese, this little section of the article seems to treat the syllable as an absolute concept (i.e. a real thing in the noumenal world). On the other hand, other parts of the article hold that certain languages can challenge the existence of the syllable. Doesn't it seem at odds with itself? (Ejoty (talk) 08:32, 4 August 2009 (UTC))

I should add here, Ejoty is right that Japanese is mora-timed in pronunciation, but the syllable is still an important concept. For example, the accent in a Japanese word can only fall on the beginning of a syllable. Benwing (talk) 20:33, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Merge?

It's been proposed that the stubs syllable onset, syllable nucleus, syllable coda, and syllable rime be merged here, so I'm opening discussion. — kwami (talk) 20:01, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Body vs. Rime?

Might be a good idea to add a section discussing how languages can divide syllables into onset and rime (e.g., English) or into body and coda (e.g., Korean). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.189.24.161 (talk) 21:19, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

You mean in writing, or phonological theory? — kwami (talk) 21:43, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Phonotactic constraints

The paragraph that gives examples of Hebrew and Arabic names would be greatly improved if someone could insert the IPA for the phonemes in Tiberian Hebrew and Quranic Arabic. Thanks. — Solo Owl (talk) 17:42, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

fixed.Benwing (talk) 20:30, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Nucleus

I came here from "vowel" to quickly find out what "nucleus" means. I don't feel that "...every syllable contains a nucleus" explains very much. 202.179.16.64 (talk) 14:02, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

fixed. Benwing (talk) 20:11, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Tree diagram not really a tree...

With L and Mu both connected to a single leaf, the diagram isn't really a tree but a graph. A tree would have them both connected to separate nodes, perhaps both with the value of omega. --bleeding_heart (talk) 21:41, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

The "Tree" not a directed acyclic graph has not been fixed as of 2017. Mhark314 (talk) 12:04, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm guessing this is about the diagram labelled a "directed graph" now - is there a reason it doesn't have arrows on the edges? Valenoern (talk) 04:47, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

All other diagrams in the section are "trees" read from top to bottom, so no arrows are needed. Only the one shown here is not. I agree with User:William Warner that this picture is confusing (or incorrect). Also, in the text not all its symbols are explained. It needs clarification or correction. −Woodstone (talk) 08:05, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

inconsistency - rime and rhyme both on page

The term 'rime' is used throughout the article, but on graphical charts, the word is spelt 'rhyme'. This is in consistent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.238.217.68 (talk) 12:56, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

CVHT definitions

The diagrams use the symbols C, V, H and T along with + and *. These are not described anywhere in the article. The only reference to them is the line: "This syllable can be abstracted as a consonant-vowel-consonant syllable, abbreviated CVC." in the Structure section.

Rhdunn (talk) 12:36, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Found a possible interpretation on the Standard Chinese phonology page, though they use G instead of H for the glide, and X^T instead of T?C* for the coda and tone. 84.3.28.160 (talk) 05:30, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Plus and asterisk are used as in regular expressions, i.e. they mean 1 or more instances and 0 or more, respectively. — Christoph Päper 10:09, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

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Earliest recorded syllables

Proto-Elamite, 3200 BC, Iraq. Not Sumerian. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19964786

I'd also idly point out that the analysis of bella coola is limited - there are multiple different theories about the structure of the language; some of them argue that bella coola has normal syllables, but a large range of possible extrasyllabic consonants, and thus has no vowel-less syllables; some of them argue that bella coola has unusually broad permitted nucleuses, including sonorants, and thus has no nucleus-less syllables. This article currently falsely suggests a single consensus in a complex field; not sure whether it needs expanding with a whole load more information, or something like reducing it to a very brief summary and linking it into Main Article: Bella Coola or something. 192.76.8.39 (talk) 19:06, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Syllable division and ambisyllabicity

Parts of this section seem to be written in rather confused English that doesn't make sense in places. It needs editing. RoachPeter (talk) 17:33, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

I have now replaced the material of this section with a new version. I didn't think there was any point repeating the much fuller treatment in English Phonology#phonotactics

Coda

The section headed 'Coda' starts with what looks like the diagrammatic representation of a four-syllable utterance. It looks as if it ought to have a caption to explain what is represented - the reader has no way of figuring this out. RoachPeter (talk) 10:10, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

User:Kwamikagami recently added this sentence, among others, to the Coda section: “In Japanese, for example, a coda may only be a nasal (homorganic with any following consonant) or, in the middle of a word, gemination of the following consonant.” I know that you will find many sources claiming exactly that, but if I remember correctly it has been debunked as a myth that results from the seemingly regular syllabic writing system. That means, Japanese speakers truly believe to pronounce and hear final /u/ (or schwa) in certain words, but it’s just not there. I think there was an anecdote of Japanese engineers trying to build a speech synthesizer or recognizer but failed until foreigners told them to expect other simple codas besides ン/ん. Sorry, I cannot find a source right now. — Christoph Päper 08:33, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Phonetically that's true. Forgot about that. Phonemically, however, there's a good argument for max syllable being CyVN (and not much for the usual analysis of N and Q being distinct phonemes). It seems other Japonic languages have developed more CVC syllables. — kwami (talk) 15:32, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

East Asian languages like Chinese

Thailand and Vietnam are not located in East Asia and there is no language group called "East Asian languages". One might think Japanese and Korean are tonal because their respective countries are in East Asia. --2.245.162.180 (talk) 22:27, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Complex coda

What is a complex coda? I am a little curious. Initially, I made an educated guess that a complex coda was a coda with more than one consonant. However, from what I obtained from Labov[1], it seems that "can't" has a complex coda but "and" doesn't.LakeKayak (talk) 19:34, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Could somebody explain this to me?, because I seem lost.LakeKayak (talk) 02:53, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

If there is a reason for using the word rime in one place and rhyme in another...

The difference should be elucidated. Otherwise, the difference should be gotten rid of. Mhark314 (talk) 12:01, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

This article and accompanying talk contain faults typical of linguistic debate

Many linguists know little about the physiology of speech. Here I see nothing about the processes behind the formation of syllables. Either they are seen as acoustic units, or they are seen as groups of phonemes. These are two totally different concepts, neither of which can explain how syllables are formed.

'Chest pulse' or 'breath pulse' are key concepts. I find almost nothing about them, even in books devoted to the physiology of speech. It is breath pulse which makes speech different to singing. Is there anyone who knows more about this subject?Luo Shanlian (talk) 04:53, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

You might be interested in the following paper: On Subglottal Pulses. (We do probably need an article for this, even though all three of subglottal pulse, chest pulse, breath pulse have zero incoming links up 'til now.) --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 17:19, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Condescendence or cultural incorrectness of "Chinese Model"

More proper terminology would "Sinitic" or "Mainland Southeast Asian Sprachbund" Model — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yoandri Dominguez Garcia (talk • contribs) 23:28, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

There is a lot wrong with the opening paragraph of the lead. The statement that "the use of both vowels and consonants creates a rhythmic punctuation" makes no sense, either literally or metaphorically. Equally meaningless is "Syllabic form arises from a principle ...". It is demonstrably false that "consonants are of short duration while vowels cand be of long duration": a recording of my pronunciation of the word 'fish', for example, shows time values of 320ms for the first consonant, 210ms for the vowel and 390 for the final consonant. I can't guess any meaning for the statement that vowels "are delivered with some restraint". It is not possible to understand what is meant by "In most modern languages, the usage of sounds is restricted to only consonants and vowels, avoiding clicks and whirrs", nor to see how this is relevant to the definition of the syllable. RoachPeter (talk) 20:38, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Definition of "syllable" and words with ambiguous number of syllables

I have two main problems with this article.

Firstly, it doesn't really contain a definition of what a syllable even is. Like it talks about how a syllable is made of a nucleus and onset and coda, but why? Why do we define these things this way in the first place? I feel like there needs to be a more general definition for what a syllable is which *motivates* why we define it and describe it with this model. Something about how most languages exhibit these "peaks of sonority" (like if you analyse the voice recording), and this leads us to define "auditory/phonetic syllables". And then we also notice that the phonological and morphological rules of a language are often naturally expressed in terms of units which mostly correspond to the phonetic syllables, and we can call these units "phonological/morphological syllables", etc. Basically explain what syllables actually physically *are*, rather than just saying "syllables have an onset and coda (which are usually consonant sequences), and a nucleus (which is usually a vowel or syllablic consonant)". Give some phonetic and phonological motivation for the definitions.

Secondly, it doesn't seem to mention the phenomenon in English where words like "fire", "real", "beer", "hour", "while", etc, can be analysed as either having 1 or 2 syllables. I've heard people often argue whether these words actually have 1 or 2 syllables. In fact, I would argue that depending on the person, these words *can* be pronounced as one syllable, as two syllables, or as something in between. (which shows that "syllable" is a fuzzy definition, just like everything in linguistics). The issue is whether the final /l/ and /r/ are the coda of the syllable, or the nucleus of their own syllable. Thus "fire" can be pronounced either as 1) /faɪ̯ɹ/ with the /ɹ/ acting as the coda of the syllable (or possibly the last part of the "triphthong" /aɪ̯ɹ/ if you want to analyse /ɹ/ as vowel-like), or 2) as /faɪ̯.(j)ɹ̩/, with /(j)ɹ̩/ being a second syllable.

--AndreRD (talk) 15:36, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

We have to consider the possibility that the word "syllable" is meaningless in every language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.48.238.18 (talk) 11:26, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

A word can be meaningless even if it has been used for thousands of years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.48.238.18 (talk) 11:30, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Arabic does NOT forbid empty onsets as stated in the null onset section

While some words do indeed begin with a phonemic glottal stop that doesn't get removed regardless of what comes before it, there are many words that begin with a vowel and a non-phonemic glottal stop that does get removed when preceded by another word. In Arabic, we call it ألف الوصل or "connecting alif". Examples of such words are the definite article ال /æl/, اسم /ɪsm/ "name", ابن /ɪbn/ "son", اثنان /ɪðnæ:n/ "two" and many others. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RaphaelSantiago53 (talk • contribs) 15:34, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

"Syllable structure" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Syllable structure. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 June 25#Syllable structure until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 08:17, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Stress mark rendering

In addition, the stress mark ⟨ˈ⟩ is placed immediately...

Alas, it renders right under the brackets in some browsers.

OK, I'll try adding a space:

⟨ˈ⟩ 
⟨ ˈ ⟩ 
⟨ ˈ⟩ 
⟨ˈ ⟩ 

OK, let's see how they render:

1. ⟨ˈ⟩
2. ⟨ ˈ ⟩
3. ⟨ ˈ⟩
4. ⟨ˈ ⟩

Hmmm...

Jidanni (talk) 18:08, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Sonorants as initials?

The claim that sonorants can't be initials seems wrong. What about m, n, l, r in Mandarin? Arachnosuchus (talk) 20:19, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Must admit I was a bit puzzled too. Through the magic of Who Wrote That?, I reviewed the diff of when this was added in 2015, but I'm still not sure what happened or what's intended. Given @Erutuon is still active, let's try bothering them to see if they remember? Remsense ‥ 诉 20:59, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't remember what I was thinking at the time, but it looks like the previous version said semivowels couldn't be initials, so I must have confused sonorants and semivowels. I've corrected that. — Eru·tuon 02:10, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I blame "sonorant" for being one of the pesky place of articulation categories that doesn't sound like itself. Remsense ‥ 论 03:36, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

As a total tangent, this is obviously a far less troublesome error than a few days ago when someone realized the mass we were listing for Moon was wrong—also through typo, I think. That's also been there since 2015! Wikiwork is beautiful. Remsense ‥ 论 03:39, 20 August 2024 (UTC)