5. What is expiratory theory?

The expiratory theory states that there are as many syllables in я word as there arc expiration pulses. The borderline between thesyllables is, according to this theory, the moment of the weakest ex­piration. This theory is inconsistent because_it_ is quite possiblejo pronounce several syllables in one articulatory effort or expiration,e.g. seeing /’siiirj/.

6. What is the sonority theory?

The sonority theory stales that there are as many syllables in a word as there are peaks of prominence or sonority.

Speech sounds pronounced with uniform force, length and pitch, differ in inherent prominence or sonority. For example, when the Rus­sian vowels /а, о, э, у, и/ are pronounced on one and the same level, their acoustic intensity, or sonority is different: the strongest is /a/, then go /о, э, у, и/.

7) What is a more popularly accepted theory of syllable division and syllable formation?

The syllable as a unit is difficult to define, though native speakers of a language are usually able, to state how many syllables there are in a particular word.

According to J. Kenyon the syllable is one or more speech sounds, forming a single uninterrupted unit of utterance, which may be a word, or a commonly recognized subdivision of a word.

The syllable can be a single word, a part of a word, a part of the grammatical form of a word.

8) Who propounded the sonority theory and what did he try to prove?

O. Jespersen established the scale of sonority of sounds, that is, the scale of their inherent prominence. According to this scale the most sonorous are back vowels (low, mid, high), then go semi-vowels and sonorants, then – voiced and voiceless consonants.

9) Who put forward to a new theory of syllable division and syllable formation?

Russian linguist and psychologist N.I. Zhinkin has suggested the so-called loudness theory which seems to combine both production and perception levels. The experiments carried out by N.I. Zhinkin showed that the arc of loudness of perception level is formed due to variations of the volume pharyngeal passage which is modified by contractions of its walls. The narrowing of the passage and the increase in muscular tension which results from it reinforce the actual loudness of a vowel thus forming the peak of the syllabic. So the syllable is the arc оf loudness which correlates with the arc of articulatory effort on the speed production level since variations in loudness are due to the work of all speech mechanisms.It is perfectly obvious that no phonetician has succeeded so far in giving an adequate explanation of what the syllable is. The difficulties seem to arise from the various possibilities of approach to the unit.

10) What is the muscular tension theory?

Academician L.V. Shcherba [1963] put forward the theory ofsyllable formation and syllable formation and syllable division. It was put forward by the French linguist MichaelleGrammont and supported and further developed by the Russian linguist Lev V. Scherba. Academician Lev VolodymyrovychScherba explained syllable formation by muscular tension impulses and three types of consonants. In speaking, muscular tensionimputes follow one another. Each impulse has its strongest point – the peak of prominence – and its weakest prominence – the valley of prominence. Valleys of prominencecorrespond to points of syllabic division. The end of one syllable and the beginning ofthe next one can be ascertained by determining the type of consonants which take partin forming the syllables.