# English syllables



## bearded

Hello everyone

Do real 'rules' exist concerning syllable separation in the English language? So far, I only could find tendencies, directions, etc. but no actual prescriptive rules.
I also noticed that English books and papers often adopt different/inconsistent criteria for syllable separation.  Besides, such criteria often appear absurd/irrational  to speakers of other languages - especially European ones.
Take a word like _sycophant_: why shoud it be divided into syc-o-phant ( see sycophant - WordReference.com Dictionary of English), and  not sy-co-phant...?

Thank you in advance for your opinion and comments.


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## Hulalessar

bearded said:


> Do real 'rules' exist concerning syllable separation in the English language?



Publishers, printers etc follow conventions for dividing words by hyphenation at the end of lines of writing which are based on etymology and morphology so as not to confuse the reader.

Dividing English words into syllables on phonological principles is a lot trickier as English allows consonant clusters. Just about the only thing you can say is that you can tell how many syllables a word has, but if it has more than one not where the syllable breaks occur. If you take the word "stride" there is no problem saying it is one syllable. Go to "astride" and you will want to divide it_ a-stride_, but that is probably because you are dividing the word on etymological/morphological principles. If there were no such word as "stride" you might come up with a different division.

The concept of a syllable may be regarded as artificial because speech is continuous. There is an argument that the concept only arose in connection with the development of writing. In the end, saying that a language has simple rules for syllabification is no more than saying its phonotactics do not allow complex onsets or codas.


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## berndf

bearded said:


> Thank you in advance for your opinion and comments.


First, I agree with Hulalessar that hyphenation does not have to be based on syllables. Many languages do that but it could equally be based on morpheme structure and that would be a sufficient explanation in this case.

Second, some people argue that English syllable structure does not follow the maximum onset principle, but I don't buy that. In my opinion people are mixing up morphemes and syllables. In this case, a syllable structure corresponding to this hyphenation would be [ˈsɪk.ə.fənt]. I would argue that such a word would be unpronounceable. If would have to be one of these three (which are all compatible with the maximum onset principle): [ˈsɪ.kə.fənt], [ˈsɪk.kə.fənt] or [ˈsɪk.?ə.fənt].


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## Hulalessar

berndf said:


> Second, some people argue that English syllable structure does not follow the maximum onset principle, but I don't buy that.



It does though get a bit tricky. How do you analyse "strengthen"?



berndf said:


> In this case, a syllable structure corresponding to this hyphenation would be [ˈsɪk.ə.fənt]



Some online dictionaries which show syllable division analyse the word that way.

I suggest that where no audible break is perceived we cannot really analyse polysyllabic words phonologically into syllables, or to be be more precise say where they begin and end, even in a language which only allows V and CV syllables. Every medial phone in a word is influenced by both the proceeding and succeeding phones such that if the proceeding and succeeding phones are eliminated sophisticated equipment (and ? humans) can identify them.


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## bearded

berndf said:


> In this case, a syllable structure corresponding to this hyphenation would be [ˈsɪk.ə.fənt]. I would argue that such a word would be unpronounceable.





Hulalessar said:


> Some online dictionaries which show syllable division analyse the word that way.


The WRDictionary (as I quoted in #1) does analyse it that way.


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## gburtonio

We also have the concept of 'ambisyllabicity' to help us when we really can't make our minds up! The theory is that a phoneme can belong to two syllables (i.e. being in the coda of one and the onset of another). It can also apply across word boundaries.


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## berndf

bearded said:


> The WRDictionary (as I quoted in #1) does analyse it that way.


No, it doesn't. It has /ˈsɪkəfənt, -ˌfænt/, i.e. it does not mark the syllable border at all, thus circumventing the problem. Many dictionaries only mark the start of stressed syllables. Webster, e.g., has full syllabification information and marks the first syllable as open: /ˈsi-kə-fənt/ (their /i/ is IPA /ɪ/). In my interpretation, their "syc•o•phant" is an example of


berndf said:


> ...mixing up morphemes and syllables.


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## berndf

Hulalessar said:


> It does though get a bit tricky. How do you analyse "strengthen"?


_Streng-then_ is compatible with the maximum onset principle, because _stre-ngthen_ is phonotactically blocked in English. Not every onset cluster is possible. For the same reason, _lat-te_ is compatible with the maximum onset principle in standard Italian.


Hulalessar said:


> Some online dictionaries which show syllable division analyse the word that way.


Can you give an example?


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## bearded

berndf said:


> it does not mark the syllable border at all


I actually read: syc.o.phant . Isn't this syllable separation?
sycophant - WordReference.com Dictionary of English


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## Hulalessar

berndf said:


> Can you give an example?



sycophantic Meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary


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## berndf

bearded said:


> I actually read: syc.o.phant . Isn't this syllable separation?
> sycophant - WordReference.com Dictionary of English


I realised that and addressed it in #7.


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## berndf

Hulalessar said:


> sycophantic Meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary


Thanks. What do you hear in their sound samples?


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## Hulalessar

berndf said:


> Thanks. What do you hear in their sound samples?



What I hear is the first syllable leading to the second leading to the third without any break.


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## sumelic

berndf said:


> First, I agree with Hulalessar that hyphenation does not have to be based on syllables. Many languages do that but it could equally be based on morpheme structure and that would be a sufficient explanation in this case.
> 
> Second, some people argue that English syllable structure does not follow the maximum onset principle, but I don't buy that. In my opinion people are mixing up morphemes and syllables. In this case, a syllable structure corresponding to this hyphenation would be [ˈsɪk.ə.fənt]. I would argue that such a word would be unpronounceable. If would have to be one of these three (which are all compatible with the maximum onset principle): [ˈsɪ.kə.fənt], [ˈsɪk.kə.fənt] or [ˈsɪk.?ə.fənt].



I don't think people are mixing up morphemes and syllables. I think the more relevant issues are: 1) to what extent should rules of syllabification be based on permissible word-initial and word-final sequences, vs. the general principle of maximizing the onset 2) how abstract should a phonological representation that includes syllabification be?

I don't know of anyone who has proposed analyzing the pronunciation of words like "sycophant" as something like [ˈsɪk.ʔə.fənt]. The use of glottal stop before vowels is not as common in English as it is in German; consider that a phrase like "an eye" is typically pronounced with the "n" as a linking consonant between the article and the vowel-initial noun, with no intervening glottal stop, unlike in German where as I understand it a glottal stop might be expected in some accents at the start of "Auge" in "ein Auge".

We could say that English just has resyllabification across word boundaries, which is an analysis that I have seen, but the complicating factor is that "resyllabified" onsets are pronounced differently from originally word-initial onsets in a number of cases--most obviously, "resyllabified" /t/ can be voiced and flapped in American English, even before a stressed vowel, while originally word-initial /t/ usually can't be.

The issue with syllabifications like [ˈsɪk.kə.fənt] is that the consonant doesn't actually sound doubled to an English speaker: "sycophant" would not be able to be pronounced with the same [k.k] sound that we could get in "sick coffin". I think I've seen some analyses that use a virtual geminate analysis anyway in such cases, but that's a theory that it would be hard to get everybody to agree on.


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## berndf

sumelic said:


> I don't know of anyone who has proposed analyzing the pronunciation of words like "sycophant" as something like [ˈsɪk.ʔə.fənt]. The use of glottal stop before vowels is not as common in English as it is in German; consider that a phrase like "an eye" is typically pronounced with the "n" as a linking consonant between the article and the vowel-initial noun, with no intervening glottal stop, unlike in German where as I understand it a glottal stop might be expected in some accents at the start of "Auge" in "ein Auge".


You don't have to convince me. I just enumerated the phonetically (not phonologically) possible alternatives.

Excluding this leaves in my mind only two phonetically possible alternatives.


sumelic said:


> The issue with syllabifications like [ˈsɪk.kə.fənt] is that the consonant doesn't actually sound doubled to an English speaker: "sycophant" would not be able to be pronounced with the same [k.k] sound that we could get in "sick coffin". I think I've seen some analyses that use a virtual geminate analysis anyway in such cases, but that's a theory that it would be hard to get everybody to agree on.


Sick coffin in connected pronunciation produces a [k:] while the  [k] in [ˈsɪk.kə.fənt] would be short, a difference that is unfortunately difficult to transcribe in IPA. As you mentioned German, there is a similar phenomenon comparing _im Meer_ and _immer_. The [m:] in the former is long, like an Italian <mm>. The latter is phonologically usually analysed as /ɪ.mɐ/ though /ɪm.mɐ/ (with a geminate but short /m/) would make much more sense.


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## berndf

Hulalessar said:


> What I hear is the first syllable leading to the second leading to the third without any break.


With respect to the /k/, I agree. In The UK pronunciation I hear the /f/ unambiguously belonging to the third syllable in its entirety (stress kicks in with the start of the /f/). In the US pronunciation it is a bit less clear.


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## sumelic

berndf said:


> You don't have to convince me. I just enumerated the phonetically (not phonologically) possible alternatives.



OK. I wasn't sure to what extent you were suggesting this was a possible phonetic realization of the word "sycophant".



> Excluding this leaves in my mind only two phonetically possible alternatives.
> 
> Sick coffin in connected pronunciation produces a [k:] while the  [k] in [ˈsɪk.kə.fənt] would be short, a difference that is unfortunately difficult to transcribe in IPA. As you mentioned German, there is a similar phenomenon comparing _im Meer_ and _immer_. The latter is phonologically usually analysed as /ɪ.mɐ/ though /ɪm.mɐ/ (with a geminate but short /m/) would make much more sense.



Well, I think this gets to the issue I mentioned of the appropriate amount of abstraction. I don't view syllables as existing at all on the strictly phonetic level. To my mind, a syllable only makes sense as a representation of some kind of phonological structure or some aspect of how the phonemes in an utterance are organized. I don't see a problem with dividing "sicker" into the syllables sɪk.ər even though the [k] is released into the [ə] without a pause between them. Supposing that every syllable must have an onset seems like it's just an unfalsifiable axiom rather than an established fact about syllabification, and I don't feel like this axiom is really worth the complications it causes. There are words like "clawing" and "baaing" where (assuming we're talking about a dialect without intrusive r) you'd have to use a very weird analysis like kloh.hing, bah.hing or klɔ.hing, bɑ.hing (where /h.h/ or /.h/ in this context is realized phonetically as null, like the "h" in "vehicle" can be) to give the second syllable an onset.

Analyses using geminates that are not actually pronounced as geminates seem pretty abstract (although maybe not as extreme as analyses where CV is the only syllable type).


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## berndf

sumelic said:


> I don't view syllables as existing at all on the strictly phonetic level.


Well, there is certainly phonetic reality to the concept of a syllable as such. Otherwise poetry wouldn't work. The only thing we can discuss is if there is a purely phonetic definition of an onset and a coda.


sumelic said:


> Analyses using geminates that are not actually pronounced as geminates seem pretty abstract


I am not doing that. I am challenging the deeply entrenched idea that _geminate_ and _long consonant_ are two words for the same thing. The two concepts are co-extensive in classical Latin and standard Italian. But I doubt it has to be like that in every language. There are consonants that are long but not geminate, like in _off_ and _mann_ in Middle and Old English, respectively (words that wouldn't be possible in classical Latin or standard Italian). I see prima face no reason why the opposite shouldn't be possible as well.


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## sumelic

I think I should have written instead "I don't view syllable division as existing at all on the strictly phonetic level." The concept of syllable count is easier to base on phonetic facts, although there are still some gray areas like the words "oil" or "snarl" for a number of American English speakers. I think that poetry is based on phonology (and traditions that aren't part of either phonology or phonetics) in addition to phonetics.

I'm not necessarily against the idea that geminate consonants could be realized phonetically in other ways than consonant length, but I don't understand what phonetic feature of the consonant is supposed to characterize geminacy in English in e.g. words like "happy". It seems to me like a geminate is postulated purely for phonotactic/phonological reasons, to account for the identity of the preceding vowel: I don't hear a difference between the consonant sounds of "happy", "poppy" and "sleepy".


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## berndf

sumelic said:


> It seems to me like a geminate is postulated purely for phonotactic/phonological reasons, to account for the identity of the preceding vowel


Since you regard syllable divisions as having only phonemic and no phonetic definitions, that shouldn't be a problem for you.


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## sumelic

berndf said:


> Since you regard syllable divisions as having only phonemic and no phonetic definitions, that shouldn't be a problem for you.



It's not a problem in and of itself. It's just that I don't feel the geminate analysis is really necessary. I'd prefer to just relax the requirement that all possible rhymes must be valid word-finally, and all possible onsets must be valid word-initially, and use syllabifications like /ˈhæ.pi/ and /ˈsɪ.ŋɪŋ/. I think most English speakers can pronounce stressed syllables ending in /æ/ /ɛ/ /ɪ/ /ʌ/ and probably /ʊ/ (although that one's a bit harder to evaluate since it's an uncommon sound in general) in isolation with no particular difficulty (e.g. for me "yeah" has /æ/ and "duh" has /ʌ/), and the restriction against monosyllabic words in the regular vocabulary ending in these sounds could be formulated in terms of a minimum length requirement rather than a phonotactic restriction on the structure of stressed syllables. I suppose polysyllabic words with a stressed final syllable can't end in one of these vowels either; maybe the length requirement applies to feet rather than just words (or maybe we can say that the restriction works the other way around: it's not permissible for stress to occur on a light final syllable, which doesn't seem too unusual).

I admit that the criterion of "can a native speaker pronounce this easily in an isolated monosyllable" that I used to support my vowel analysis in the previous paragraph would tend to go against treating intervocalic /ŋ/ as an onset, but as I've said, I feel like "geminate" analyses are unnecessarily abstract (and in any case, to avoid onset /ŋ/, a geminate analysis has to treat intervocalic /ŋ/ as something like /ŋ.g/ or /n.g/, which is an even further level of abstraction), and the syllabification /sɪŋ.ɪŋ/ alongside /ˈhæ.pi/ feels inconsistent to me, so I'm willing to bite the bullet and claim that intervocalic /ŋ/ is an onset consonant. I would argue that it's not necessarily impossible for a sound to be forbidden from occurring word-initially but able to occur as an onset in other contexts in the word. E.g. it's well known that the voiced fricatives in English occur relatively rarely word-initially--I think /v/ is one that is best integrated into the phonology of normal words, while word-initial /z/ is mostly confined to either learned words, slang or neologistic proper nouns; word-initial /ð/ is confined to a small, pretty much closed class of function words; and word-initial /ʒ/ occurs pretty much only in foreignisms (and some speakers may replace it with /dʒ/ in this position)--but I think it's rare for someone to argue that because of that, they shouldn't be treated as onsets when they occur intervocalically. In this forum, there was also a thread recently about languages that don't have word-initial rhotics, and although in some cases this is just a matter of what the inherited vocabulary looks like (not a currently-active constraint on the phonotactics of words in the language) it seems that in other cases, it is in fact an active phonotactic constraint such that a speaker of the language might find it difficult to pronounce in isolation  a monosyllable starting with some rhotic consonant that exists as a phoneme in the language.

(None of this has much to do with how I break up the written forms of words for hyphenation.)


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## berndf

That would make it de facto a question of personal taste how to syllabify certain words. That might explain why dictionaries are inconsistent here. The Cambridge University Press online dictionary avoids lax vowels in open syllables (happ-y but slee-py) while Webster adheres to the maximum onset principle (ha-ppy and slee-py).

I am not sure I am yet ready to abandon the idea of finding a better, preferably phonetic definition of syllable boundaries.


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## Hulalessar

Do we really need to know where syllable boundaries come?


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## berndf

Many phonological in various languages depend on the syllable status (open-closed, light-heavy). So, I would say yes.


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## Red Arrow

In Dutch, you have got to put as much consonants in the *next* syllable as possible. I think this works for English as well.

 syc-o-phant => C can move to the second syllable
 sy-co-phant

 stre-ngthen => English and Dutch syllables can't start with ngth
 streng-then

 uns-tressed => S can move to the second syllable
 un-stressed

In Dutch, we also have the tendency to keep morphemes together in writing compound words.

 aard-ap-pel ("earth-ap-ple", apple of the earth = potato)
The first p isn't pronounced. It is only written this way to make the second syllable look 'closed' and thus with a short a.

Pronunciation: [a:r . dɑ . pəl]
The D moves to the second syllable.


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## berndf

Red Arrow :D said:


> In Dutch, you have got to put as much consonants in the *next* syllable as possible. I think this works for English as well.


That's what we've been discussing here, if and to what extent the maximum onset principle applies to English. All West Germanic languages underwent (with the exception of some regional dialects) underwent first vowel lengthening in open syllables and then loss of phonemic consonant length. This created some strange phenomena like happy, which was /hap.pi/ before the loss of long consonants and is now either syllabified as either /hæp.i/ (violating the maximum onset principle) or /hæ.pi/ (violating rule of no lax vowels in open syllables). Dutch and German have the same issue. Dutch and German have the same issue. It is not specific to English.


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## Hulalessar

Red Arrow :D said:


> stre-ngthen => English and Dutch syllables can't start with ngth
> streng-then



The problem with that is that in the word "strength" "strength" is a syllable. That leaves you having to say that sometimes it is a syllable and sometimes it is not if you do not analyse "strengthen" as "strength-en".


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## berndf

Hulalessar said:


> The problem with that is that in the word "strength" "strength" is a syllable.


_Strength_ is a morpheme in _strengthen_. There is no reason why syllable boundaries have to be aligned to morpheme boundaries nor that the syllable structure of a morpheme in one word needs to be the same in an other word containing it, for that matter.


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## iezik

bearded said:


> Do real 'rules' exist concerning syllable separation in the English language?


J C Wells tells us in the introduction to his Pronunciation Dictionary that "different phoneticians hold very different views about it" and LPD use principles that "most helpfully predict the distribution of allophones". Furthermore, "boundary between the elements of compound", "consonants are with more strongly stressed vowel", "avoid consonant clusters that are not found at edges of words". He also lists some cases where these principles lead to different results so he defines priority between them.

His article Syllabification and allophony is still available.

So, how to say, there are real rules as in "in England people should drive to the left and in France to the right". You can use the rules that fit your needs.


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## bearded

iezik said:


> You can use the rules that fit your needs.


A very practical solution!

Many thanks again for all the responses.


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