Li8 Structure of English Syllables

Opening questions  Disperse vs disburse, misdirect vs Mr Ect  What is the longest initial/final consonant sequence in English?  What do English speakers do when handed sequences like kn- (typically in personal names)?

Today’s topics  The syllable and its components  English evidence for these components  English phenomena that appear to involve syllable structure

Syllable structure  Maybe also Appendix  Some evidence for syllable components: Stemberger found in study of speech errors that more than 90% of ordering speech errors invert onset-onset, coda-coda σ Rhyme OnsetNucleusCoda ł, r-del. in Coda or Rhyme?

Syllables  Most people have clear intuitions about syllable counts and divisions. sing.er : see.ker at.lan.tic : a.tro.cious  Are they simply counting vowels? No: button Abkhaz mts’k’ ‘type of fly’ Syllable divisions cannot refer simply to vowels  pa.per vs sing.er, distend vs distaste

Blends  Experiment 1 Question  Do Onsets and Rimes exist (as suggested by e.g. brunch vs. *blunch)? Method  Train subjects to combine pairs of well-formed English nonce monosyllables (such as krint and glupth) into a new monosyllable that contains parts of both. Results  responses like krupth (Onset kr- of the first syllable and Rime -upth of the second) were produced far more often than any other possible combination. Conclusion  The natural break within English syllables is immediately before the vowel (i.e. Onset vs. Rime). σ σ O R O R N C N C k r i n t g l u p th Experiments from Treiman 1983

Blends  Experiment 2 Hypothesis  If a syllable is composed of Onset + Rime, then artificial games that keep these units intact should be easier to learn than games that break up the syllables in a different way. Method  Subjects taught 2 types of word games: 1. Blend the Onset of a nonce CCVCC syllable with the Rime of another  e.g. fl-irz + gr-uns  fl-uns 2. Combine non-constituents (f-runs, flins, flir-s). Results  Game 1 was learned with fewer errors than was Games 2. Conclusion  Speakers have access to the constituents O and R. Experiments from Treiman 1983

Some syllable-based effects  English aspiration [p h ]it : s[p]it dis[t]end : dis[t h ]aste  Nickname formation Andy, *Andry  English r-coloring and other coarticulation effects

Schwa deletion  opera, family…  Traditional analysis: Deletion only occurs if resulting cluster could form a possible onset  Why would this be so??  celery, family, sophomore, prisoner… Davidson 2002:  schwa deletion only before sonorants vegetable, Salisbury, suppose, Dorothy, medicine… memory vs memorise

Vowel hiatus  Generally interpreted as subcase of requirement that all syllables must have an onset Glottal stop insertion  Article allomorphy  Glide insertion?  R-insertion

Intervocalic C sequences  A priori, it’s not obvious how to syllabify intervocalic Cs Oft-invoked principle: Onset Maximisation Problems:  stress  vowel quality  morpheme boundaries  phonotactics  ambisyllabicity merry, happy…

References  Davidson, Lisa Weak Syllable Elision and Gestural Coordination in English. Talk presented at HUMDRUM, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, April  Fidelholtz, James Word Frequency and Vowel Reduction in English. Robin E. Grossman, L. James San & Timothy J. Vance, eds. Papers from the 11th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society  Hooper, Joan Constraints on schwa- deletion in American English. In J. Fisiak (ed.) Recent developments in historical phonology. The Hague: Mouton