This document discusses syllables and syllable structure in the English language. Some key points: - A syllable is the unit between a phoneme and a word and consists of at least one vowel sound. - Words can be made up of one (monosyllabic), two (disyllabic), or more (polysyllabic) syllables. - The nucleus of a syllable is obligatorily a vowel sound, while consonant sounds occur before (onset) and/or after (coda) the vowel, making syllables open or closed. - English allows up to three consonant clusters at the beginning of a syllable and four at the end. - Some consonant sounds can

1. Paper II Language
Unit III
Prepared by Dr. Abha Pandey
Professor, Department of English
for MA IV Sem students
April 2020

2.  The unit that is next in hierarchy to speech
sound is the syllable.
 Syllable is the next higher unit than the
phoneme. Man -/mæn/
 A word consists of one or more than one
syllables
 rat- /ræt/ has one syllable (monosyllable),
redeem- / ri -di:m / has two syllables
(disyllable), humanist /hju-mə-nist / has three
syllables (trisyllable)

3.  Syllable is marked with a hyphen thus: tai-lor,
cu-cum-ber, pho-ne-tics and so on.
 Count and mark the syllable
 Cat Boar
 Catch beard
 car batch
 Bargain casting
 Categorical beginning

4.  Its not always easy to point out where on a
syllable ends and where the next one begins.
 Cigarette shoud be /si-gə-ret/ or /sig-ə-ret/?
 Examination: x represents two sounds- [g] and
[z]. A phonetic transcription is required for
marking the syllable division.
 It can’t be divided as /i-gzæ-mi-nei-ʃn/
 English does not allow these two consonants to
begin a syllable.

5. 
 Syllable


 ONSET RIME
 (Releasing Consonant)

 CONSONANT- NUCLEUS CODA
(Arresting Consonant)
• The nucleus is central obligatory element of a
syllable and the releasing and arresting
consonants are optional marginal elements.



6.  The nucleus of a syllable is (vowel) is
symbolized as V and the marginal elements are
symbolized as C. cat has the structure CVC
 examples of V, VC, CV, , CVC, CCVC, CCCVC,
CVCC, CVCCC
 English allows up to three consonants to begin
a syllable and up to four consonants to end a
syllable.

7.  Structure Example
 V I /ai/
 VC all / :l/
 CVC girl /g :l/
 CCCV straw /str :/
 CCCVCC sprained /spreind/
 CVCCCC tempts /tempts/

8.  Sequence of syllables at the beginning or end of
the syllable are called consonant cluster.
 Thus /st/ and /nd/ in stand are consonant
clusters while /mb/ in member is not because
/m/ is the arresting consonant of first syllable
and ‘b’ is the releasing consonant of second
syllable.
 /m/ and /b/ are abutting consonants.

9.  Consonants which occur together in a
word but form part of two different
syllablesSend-/send/
 number -/nʌm-bə/
 /nd/ in send and /m/ and /b/ in
number are abutting consonants
 Syllable that ends in a consonant is a
closed syllable and one that ends in a
vowel is an open syllable. Eg. Bad,
good- closed, she, to –open.

10.  There are some syllables in which the nucleus
is a consonant such as /n/ /l/ /m/
 These are called Syllabic Consonants
 Nucleus of some syllables are occupied by
certain consonants which function like vowels.
 button /bʌtn/ /bʌ -tn/
 bottle /bɒtl/ /bɒ -tl/
 rhythm /riðm/ /ri-ðm/
 In syllable structure the syllabic consonants are
marked as V.

11.  Balasubramanian.,T. A Textbook of English
Phonetics for Indian Students. Macmillan India
Ltd. 1981. pp. 64-69.
 Jones, Daniel, The Pronunciation of English, Eigth
edition, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1956.