a syllable is the sound of a vowel

8/12/2019 A Syllable is the Sound of a Vowel

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A syllable is the sound of a vowel (a, e, i, o, u) that is created when pronouncing a word.

The number of times that you hear the sound of a vowel (a, e, i, o, u) in a word is equal to the

number of syllables a word has. According to Oxford dictionary 8th edition, syllable is define as

any of the units into which is divided, containing a vowel sound and usually one or more

consonants. Hence, when one reads a word containing 3 syllables for example telephone; he

or she stops each time they pronounces a vowel sound.

For example; Telepho ne

When read; Te/le/phon e

Stops each t ime they pronou nces a vowel sound

Many people can count how many syllables in a word and this is usually done with

taping fingers to certain rhythm. In relation to that, there are some features of the English

pronunciation that is usually noticed by English speakers, it is the strong and weak syllables.

Strong syllable has a peak that is either a tense vowel (long vowel) or a coda. One important

thing that must be taken into account is although strong syllable has its own peak but it will not

have //, /i/, and //. In contrast, if the vowel is one of the //,/e/,//,//,// and //, they must

have a coda. According to Peter Roach in his fourth edition English Phonetics and Phonology

book, he stated that syllables in weak syllables tend to be shorter, of lower intensity (loudness)

and different in quality. The clearer example can be seen in the vowel // or schwa as in the

word better (/bet/), a close front unrounded vowel in the general area of i, , symbolised i; as

in the word happy (/hpi/), and a close back rounded vowel in the general area of and as

in the word thank you (/k j/).


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The number of syllables in a word is easily counted and even the extremely long word

like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious can be easily counted. However, some people do notthink that syllables have an internal structure. This simply means that syllables can be divided

into smaller parts which comprises of onset and rhyme and within the rhyme we can find the

nucleus and coda.

A syllable may or may not have an onset and a coda. The onset which isthe beginning

sounds of the syllable is always consonants and the nucleus is a vowel although the consonants

/ r /, / l /, / m /, / n /, and // is the nucleus of thesyllable.

In the following words, the onset is in red colour; the rest

is underlined.

readflop

strap


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A rhyme comes after the onset and it comprises of nucleus and coda.

The nucleus is the essential part of a syllable and it must be present in order for a

syllable to be present. Besides that, a vowel in the first syllable of the word indicates that the

syllable has a zero onset and having a syllable that begins with two consonant is called as

consonant cluster as in the word sting (/st/). The /s/ in the syllable is referred as pre-initial

and the /t/ is referred as initial consonant.

In relation to my point above, when there is no final consonant in a syllable, we referred that aszero coda and if there is one consonant, we referred that as final consonant. In addition, there

If a word contains more than one syllable, it will have the usualsyllable parts:

win.dow

to.ma.to

pre.pos.te.rous

fun.da.men.tal

Rhyme = nucleus+ coda

One type is composed of s followed by one of a small set of constants.

E.g : stingsti

swayswei

The /s/ in these cluster is call the Pre-initial Consonantand the other consonant

/t/,/w/,/m/ in the above examples are the initial consonants.


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are two sorts of two consonant final clusters, one being a final consonant preceded by a pre-final and the second type is a final consonant followed by a post final consonant.

For example;

Pre-f inal consonant

Bump , /bmp/

The f inal consonant/p/ is preceded by the pre-final consonant/m/

Post Final consonant

backed, /bkt/

The f inal consonant/k/ is followed by a post f inal consonant/t/

In conclusion, having some knowledge on syllable can be very helpful to secondlanguage learners of English as it has complex structure than any other language.

a syllable is the sound of a vowel

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