Li8 Structure of English

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 σ Rhyme Onset Nucleus Coda • 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 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

σσ O R O R N C N C k r i n t g l u p th 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). 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: • Blend the Onset of a nonce CCVCC syllable with the Rime of another • e.g. fl-irz + gr-uns fl-uns • 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 • [ph]it : s[p]it • dis[t]end : dis[th]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. 2002. Weak Syllable Elision and Gestural Coordination in English. Talk presented at HUMDRUM, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, April 20-21. • Fidelholtz, James. 1975. 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. 200-213. • Hooper, Joan. 1978. Constraints on schwa-deletion in American English. In J. Fisiak (ed.) Recent developments in historical phonology. The Hague: Mouton. 183-207.

Li8 Structure of English