2. Content:
Close front and close back vowels
Difference in strong and weak syllables
Syllabic l
Syllabic n
Syllabic m and ŋ
Syllabic r
3. Close front and close back vowels
Close front vowels are i and i: and we can find them occuring:
i. In word-final position in words spelt with final y or ey
(after one or more consonant letters) e.g ‘happy’ hæpi,
valley væli and in morpheme-final words when such words
haves suffixes beginning with vowels, e.g easiest i:ziəst
ii. In a prefix such as those spelt ‘re’ ‘pre’ ‘de’ that precedes a
vowel and is unstressed, e.g ‘react’ riækt,’proccupied’
priɒkjʊpaid
iii. In the suffiexes spelt ‘ious’ ‘iate’, when they have two
syllables, e.g ‘hilarious’ hileəriəs
iv. In the following words when unstressed ‘he’ she’ ‘we’ ‘me’
‘be’, and a word ‘the’ when it precedes a vowel.
4. Difference in strong and weak
syllables
In strong syllables it is comparatively easy to
distinguish i from i: and, u from u: , for example feet
and fit, but in weak syllables it is much less easy to
hear the difference.
We can see this in:
Easy Busy
i:zi: bizi:
I:zi bizi
This is not phonemic transcription in traditional sense ,
but it is best accepted by the native speakers.
5. Syllabic l
Syllabic l is the most noticeable example of English
syllabic consonant.In words with a preceding
consonant such as bottle, tunnel we have lateral
release.The l is a “dark l”.
In RP we can usually find it in the words that have one
or more vowel preceding suffix –le.Examples are:
i. With alveolar consonant preceding ;‘cattle’ kætl
‘bottle’ bɒtl
ii. With non-alveolar consonant preceding ;’couple’
kʌpl ‘trouble’ trʌbl
6. Syllabic n
Is most commonly found after plosive and fricative
sound, in the case of t and d followed by n the plosive
is nassaly released by lowering of the soft palate e.g.
‘eaten’ i:tn
In words where syllabic consonant is followed by ‘an’
or ‘on’ it is rarely heard e.g. wagon wægən
After bilabial consonants it is considered equally
acceptable to use n or ən e.g. ‘ribbon’ ribən
After f and v , n is more usual than ən e.g ‘seven’ sevn
Clusters with nasal+plosive+syllabic nasal are very
unusual e.g ‘London’ lʌndən
7. Syllabic m and ŋ
We find them sometimes in words like ‘happen’ which
could be transcribed as hæpm or hæpn and upper-
most could be pronounced like ʌpməust although
ʌpəməust is more usual pronounciation
Examples of syllabic velar nasals are ‘thicken’ θikŋ and
‘broken key’ brəukŋ ki: where the nasal consonant
occurs between velar consonant.
8. Syllabic r
In accents of the type called ‘rhotic’ such as most
American accent syllablic r is very common.
Syllabic r is less common in RP and there are
acceptable pronounciations without the syllabic
consonant.Here are some examples:
a) Where non-syllabic r is acceptable;history histri (not
usually histəri)
b) Where ər is also acceptable; ‘buttering’ bʌtriŋ
There are couple minimal pairs in wich meaning of the
word depends wether r is syllabic or not;
‘Hungary’ hʌŋgri ‘hungry’ hʌŋgri
