Li8 Structure of English
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Transcript 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
ł, r-del. in
Coda or
Rhyme?
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
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
σ
O
Blends
Experiment 1
σ
R
N
O
C
k r i n t
R
N
C
g l u p th
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:
1. Blend
the Onset of a nonce CCVCC syllable with the Rime of
another
e.g. fl-irz + gr-uns fl-uns
2. 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
Nickname formation
[ph]it : s[p]it
dis[t]end : dis[th]aste
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 schwadeletion in American English. In J. Fisiak (ed.)
Recent developments in historical phonology. The
Hague: Mouton. 183-207.