Phonetic Analysis of Syllable Structure and Division

Phonetic vs. Phonological Perspectives

Looking at syllables from a phonetic point of view is different from the phonological perspective. Phonetically, syllables are described according to how they are produced and how they sound.

A syllable normally has a central part, which has little or no obstruction to the airflow and sounds louder. This central part is usually a vowel. Before and after this centre (that is, at the beginning and end of the syllable), there is more obstruction to the airflow and the sounds are usually less loud.

The Articulatory Approach

One phonetic approach tries to define syllables according to the articulatory effort needed to produce them. The psychologist R. H. Stetson suggested that syllables are related to chest pulses, which are contractions of the chest muscles that produce small bursts of air pressure when we speak.

According to this idea:

• Each chest pulse corresponds to one syllable.
• The increase in air pressure is strongest in the central part or peak of the syllable.

However, in practice, it is often difficult to determine exactly where one syllable ends and another begins. For example, the word bitter could be perceived in different ways, such as bi-tter, bit-ter, or bitt-er.

The Auditory Approach and Prominence Theory

Another phonetic approach explains syllables in auditory terms—that is, according to how sounds are perceived by the listener. The Prominence Theory states that in a sequence of sounds, some are naturally more sonorous (louder or more resonant) than others.

Key aspects of this theory include:

• Each peak of sonority usually corresponds to the centre of a syllable.
• Vowels are the most sonorous sounds, so they normally form the syllable nucleus.
• Consonants are less sonorous and create the "valleys" between syllables.

Although this theory is useful, it does not always show clearly where the boundary between syllables should be. For example, the word busker could be divided in different ways: bus-ker, bu-sker, or busk-er. Even if other acoustic factors such as pitch or length are considered, the problem of syllable division may still remain.

Why Syllable Division Is Difficult

Different Criteria

First, syllables can be divided according to different criteria, such as phonetic or morphological criteria. These may produce different results. For example, the word stylistics could be divided morphologically as styl-is-tics, but according to pronunciation, it would be divided as /staɪ-ˈlɪs-tɪks/.

Different Possible Divisions

Even if we only consider pronunciation, speakers may disagree about where the syllable boundary is. For example, the word extra could theoretically be divided in several ways:

• /’e.kstrə/
• /’ek.strə/
• /’eks.trə/
• /’ekst.rə/
• /’ekstr.ə/

However, some of these divisions are clearly not acceptable in English.

The Maximal Onset Principle

Because syllable division is difficult, linguists often use a rule called the Maximal Onset Principle. This principle states that when a consonant appears between two syllables, it should be placed at the beginning of the second syllable whenever possible, as long as it follows the phonotactic rules of the language.

For example, in the word extra, the acceptable division is /’ek.strə/ because the consonant cluster /kstr/ cannot appear either as an onset or as a coda.

Problems with the Maximal Onset Principle

Even the Maximal Onset Principle does not solve every case. For example, stressed syllables with short vowels (/ɪ, e, æ, ʌ, ʊ, ɒ/) normally cannot appear without a coda.

If we followed the maximal onset principle strictly, the word better would be divided as /’be.tər/. But the syllable /be/ is not allowed in English. Therefore, the word is usually divided as /bet.ər/. On the other hand, beater is divided as /’biː.tər/. This shows that no single rule can solve all syllable division problems.

Other Cases in Syllabification

Unstressed Short Vowels and Compounds

Unstressed short vowels such as /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ can sometimes appear in final position in unstressed syllables when a consonant begins the next syllable. Example: develop → /dɪˈvel.əp/.

In compound words, syllables are usually divided according to the word boundaries. For example, in the word hardware, although it could theoretically be divided as /’hɑː.dweə/, most speakers prefer /’hɑːd.weə/ because it reflects the structure of the compound word.

Ambisyllabic Consonants

In some cases, a consonant between two vowels cannot clearly belong to only one syllable. In these situations, the consonant may be considered ambisyllabic, meaning that it belongs to both syllables at the same time.