Transcript Li8 Structure of English

Li8 Structure of English
Syllables
Opening questions
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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
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The syllable and its components
English evidence for these
components
English phenomena that appear to
involve syllable structure
Syllable structure
σ
Rhyme
Onset
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Nucleus
ł, r-del. in
Coda or
Rhyme?
Coda
Maybe also Appendix
Some evidence for syllable components:
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Stemberger found in study of speech errors that
more than 90% of ordering speech errors invert
onset-onset, coda-coda
Syllables
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Most people have clear intuitions
about syllable counts and
divisions.
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sing.er : see.ker
at.lan.tic : a.tro.cious
Are they simply counting vowels?
No:
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button
Abkhaz mts’k’ ‘type of fly’
Syllable divisions cannot refer simply to
vowels
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pa.per vs sing.er, distend vs distaste
σ
O
Blends
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Experiment 1
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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
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Experiment 2
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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
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e.g. fl-irz + gr-uns  fl-uns
2. Combine non-constituents (f-runs, flins, flir-s).
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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
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English aspiration
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Nickname formation
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[ph]it : s[p]it
dis[t]end : dis[th]aste
Andy, *Andry
English r-coloring and other
coarticulation effects
Schwa deletion
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opera, family…
Traditional analysis:
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Deletion only occurs if resulting cluster
could form a possible onset
Why would this be so??
 celery, family, sophomore, prisoner…
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Davidson 2002:
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schwa deletion only before sonorants
vegetable, Salisbury, suppose, Dorothy,
medicine…
memory vs memorise
Vowel hiatus
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Generally interpreted as subcase of
requirement that all syllables must
have an onset
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Glottal stop insertion
Article allomorphy
Glide insertion?
R-insertion
Intervocalic C sequences
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A priori, it’s not obvious how to
syllabify intervocalic Cs
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Oft-invoked principle: Onset Maximisation
Problems:
stress
 vowel quality
 morpheme boundaries
 phonotactics
 ambisyllabicity
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merry, happy…
References
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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.