Российский государственный педагогический университет им. А.И. Герцена

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Направление 031200 – Лингвистика и межкультурная коммуникация

Специальность 031202 – Перевод и переводоведение

Квалификация: Лингвист, переводчик

Structural peculiarities of English syllables. Criteria of syllable formation and syllable division.

Работу выполнила:

студентка 3 курса группы 1ПА

факультета иностранных языков

Сытова Анна Сергеевна

Санкт-Петербург

2013

Contents:

Part I

1. The character of syllable……………………………………………………3

2. Types of syllables…………………………………………………………..4

3. Structure of syllables……………………………………………………….5

4. The peculiarities of the syllabic structure in English……………………….6

Part II

1. Theories on syllable formation and syllable division………………………6

2. Syllable division in English………………………………………………...8

3. The monophthongs and diphthongs in syllable division…………………...9

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………...11

Part I

1. The character of syllable

Words can be cut up into units called syllables. Humans seem to need syllables as a way of segmenting the stream of speech and giving it a rhythm of strong and weak beats, as we hear in music. Syllables don't serve any meaning-signaling function in language; they exist only to make speech easier for the brain to process. A word contains at least one syllable.

Most speakers of English have no trouble dividing a word up into its component syllables. Sometimes how a particular word is divided might vary from one individual to another, but a division is always easy and always possible.

Syllable is a minimal pronounceable unit into which sounds show a tendency to cluster or group themselves. Being the smallest pronounceable units, the syllables form language units of greater magnitude, that is morphemes, words and phrases¹.

Syllabic sounds in English are not only vowels but also consonants [l], [m], [n], which become syllabic if they occur in an unstressed final position preceded by a noise consonant. For example, table [ˈteıbl], garden [ˈga:dn], bitten [ˈbi:tn]. In English the sonorant [n] is always syllabic in the contracted negative forms of auxiliary and modal verbs, e.g. isn’t [ˈɪznt], wasn’t [ˈwɒznt], haven’t [ˈhævnt], doesn’t [ˈdʌznt], didn’t [ˈdɪdnt], wouldn’t [ˈwʊdnt], shouldn’t [ˈʃʊdnt], etc.

The sonorants may lose their syllabic character when they occur in the middle of a word just before a vowel belonging to a suffix. For instance:

Syllabic sonorants Non-syllabic sonorants

listen [ˈlɪsn] listening [ˈlɪsnɪŋ]

drizzle [ˈdrɪzl] drizzling [ˈdrɪzlɪŋ]²

The consonants [w], [r], [j] are never syllabic as they are always syllable-initial. Thus vowels and sonorants are syllable-forming elements and every word, phrase or sentence has as many syllables as it has syllabic elements.