Page 117 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Unit 9: Clusters and Syllables

This is one way of looking at syllables. Looking at them from the phonological point of view is quite Notes
different. What this involves is looking at the possible combinations of English phonemes; the study
of the possible phoneme combinations of a language is called phonotactics. It is simplest to start by
looking at what can occur in initial position - in other words, what can occur at the beginning of the
first word when we begin to speak after a pause. We find that the word can begin with a vowel, or
with one, two or three consonants. No word begins with more than three consonants. In the same
way, we can look at how a word ends when it is the last word spoken before a pause; it can end with
a vowel, or with one, two, three or (in a small number of cases) four consonants. No current word
ends with more than four consonants.
9.2.2 The Structure of the English Syllable
Let us now look in more detail at syllable onsets. If the first syllable of the word in question begins
with a vowel (any vowel may occur, though υ is rare) we say that this initial syllable has a zero
onset. If the syllable begins with one consonant, that initial consonant may be any consonant phoneme
except ŋ; ¥ is rare.
We now look at syllables beginning with two consonants. When we have two or more consonants
together we call them a consonant cluster. Initial two-consonant clusters are of two sorts in English.
One sort is composed of s followed by one of a small set of consonants; examples of such clusters are
found in words such as ‘sting’ st1 … , ‘sway’ swe1, ‘smoke’ sm υ k. The s in these clusters is called the
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pre-initial consonant and the other consonant (t, w, m in the above examples) the initial consonant.
The other sort begins with one of a set of about fifteen consonants, followed by one of the set l, r, w,
j as in, for example, ‘play’ pleI, ‘quick’ kwIk, ‘few’ fju:. We call the first consonant of these clusters the
initial consonant and the second the post-initial. There are some restrictions on which consonants
can occur together. This can best be shown in table form, as in Table 9.2. When we look at three-
consonant clusters we can recognise a clear relationship between them and the two sorts of two-
consonant cluster described above; examples of three-consonant initial clusters are: ‘split’ spl1t, ‘stream’
stri;m, ‘square’ skwe . The s is the pre-initial consonant, the p, t, k that follow s in the three example
words are the initial consonant and the l, r, w are post-initial. In fact, the number of possible initial
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three-consonant clusters is quite small and they can be set out in full (words given in spelling form):

Post-Initial
l r w j
p ‘splay’ ‘spray’ — ‘spew’
s plus initial t — ‘string’ — ‘stew’
k ‘sclerosis’ ‘screen’ ‘squeak’ ‘skewer’

We now have a similar task to do in studying final consonant clusters. Here we find the possibility of
up to four consonants at the end of a word. If there is no final consonant we say that there is a zero
coda. When there is one consonant only, this is called the final consonant. Any consonant may be a
final consonant except h, w, j. The consonant r is a special case: it doesn’t occur as a final consonant in
BBC pronunciation, but there are many rhotic accents of English in which syllables may end with this
consonant. There are two sorts of two-consonant final cluster, one being a final consonant preceded
by a pre-final consonant and the other a final consonant followed by a post-final consonant. The pre-
final consonants form a small set: m, n, ŋ, l, s. We can see these in ‘bump’ b• mp, ‘bent’ bent, ‘bank’
bæŋk, ‘belt’ belt, ‘ask’ a:sk. The post-final consonants also form a small set: s,z,t,d,θ; example words
are: ‘bets’ bets, ‘beds’ bedz, ‘backed’ bækt, ‘bagged’ bægd, ‘eighth’ e1tθ. These post-final consonants
can foten be identified as separate morphemes (although not always—‘axe’ æks, for example, is a
single morpheme and its final s has no separate meaning). A point of pronunciation can be pointed
out here: the release of the first plosive of a plosive-plus-plosive cluster such as the g (of gd) in bægd
or the k (of kt) in bækt is usually without plosion and is therefore practically inaudiable.

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