Syllable formation theories

Syllable – is a phoneme or a group of phoneme united by word accent and meant to build up phonetic word.

Syllables can be viewed:

1) Articulatory – we can pronounce it, divide it into syllables for better understanding.

2) Acoustically – we can perceive the syllable with word accent.

3) Functionally – constitutive – to build up word.

4) Graphically – syllabographs in writing.

Syllable may be: one word; a part of a word; a grammatical part of a word – un-known.

Types of syllables in English: open, closed, vowel+/r/, vowel+/re/.

Theories:

- There are as many syllables in a world as there are vowels.

- Expiratory theory. There are as many syllables in a word as there are pulses of expiration.

- Sonority theory. There as many syllables in a word as there are vowels and sonorants.

- Arch of loudness. There as many syllables in a word as there are peaks of loudness.

Syllable division:

1) Morphological – the word is split strictly sticking to its morphological structure (tutor – tut –or)

2) Phonetic principle – based on sonority theory and articulatory principle (English – Eng – lish)

Word accent

is a special prominence or highlighting given to one or more syllables among other syllables in a word. Classification of word accent:

1) Acc. To the position in a word – free,fixed.

2) Acc. To the degree – primary, secondary, tertiary.

Functions of word accent:

1) Constitutive – helps to build up words.

2) Recognative – we can hear the boundaries of the words in speech because of word accent and rhythm caused by it.

3) Distinctive – helps to differentiate grammar forms of the word (‘conduct – con’duct)

Tendencies of word accent distribution in English:

- Recessive – the majority of Eng. Words have the word accent on the initial syllable.

- Rhythmic – alteration of stressed and unstressed syllables at approximate equal periods of time.

- Retentive – manifests that the position of word accent is preserved in parent words

- Semantic – states that in compound words the most semantically important part is under primary stress.

Utterance stress

is a special prominence given to one or more syllables among other syllables in the utterance. U. s. underlines the words which are essential to the meaning of the whole utterance. Words of little semantic value are usually unstressed or just partially stressed.

Utterance stress:

1) Emphatic/syntagmatic – some words within an utterance are irreplaceable and thus make the backbone of the utterance.

2) Normal – defines those words which can be omitted but still have importance concerning the whole meaning.

3) Logical – forms the communicative centre of the utterance. It shows the most important word within utterance.

Intonation

is the lan-ge universal because it is presented in every lan-ge in the world and no lan-ge is spoken as monotone but lan-ges are not the same acc. To the type of intonation. It is complex unity of variations in voice speech, rhythm, voice timbre, tempo and pausetion determined by the communicative situation.

Int-on includes: voice pitch, word stress, utterance stress, rhythm.

The role of intonation in speech: auditory level - realization of into in speech. Each syllable of speech has a special pitch coloring. The general function of intonation - is a communicative function. It differentiates informational content, text structure, meaning of lexical units, stylistic functions, attitude, statements\questions\commands etc.

The sense group is a group of words which is semantically and syntactically complex. In Phonetics actualized sense groups are called intonation groups. Intonation patterns containing a number of syllables consist of the following parts:

- the prehead

- the head (the 1^st accented syllable)

-

- the nucleus (the last acc.syll.) – is the most important part of the intonation pattern.

- the tail – conveys no particular information

Intonation Pattern:

Nucleus+ stressed and undressed syllables. Intonation pattern serves to actualize syntagms.

Nucleus: the nucleus (the last acc.syll.) – is the most important part of the intonation pattern. A stressed syllable which has a greater prominence than the others. Generally – the last strongly accented syllable of an intonation pattern. Marks a significant change in pitch direction (distinctly up or down). Nuclear tones: low fall, high fall, low rise, high rise, fall rise, rise fall, rise fall rises.

Rhythm and tempo

Rhythm – a general term, connected with time and space. Realized in lexical, syntactical and prosodic means and their combinations: word repetition, syntactical parallelism, intensification are perceived as rhythmical on lexical, syntactical and prosodic levels.

Type of rhythm depends on the language:

Syllable-timed (French, Spanish, and other Romance lang-s) - speaker gives equal amount of time to each syllable.

Stress-timed (Germanic lang-s as English, German, Russian.) – rhythm is based on a larger unit than syllable. Stressed syllables are pronounced and equal intervals, no matter how many unstressed syllables are between them.

Tempo – expresses different degrees of importance in utterance, emotional state. Tempo increases when giving highly emotional statements and slows down in less emotional state.

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