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Linguistics

Notes vowels do. Another problem is that different languages have different ways of dividing their
sounds into vowels and consonants; for example, the usual sound produced at the beginning of
the word ‘red’ is felt to be a consonant by most English speakers, but in some other languages (e.g.
Mandarin Chinese) the same sound is treated as one of the vowels.
5.1.1 Syllable, Vowel and Consonant
The units or sections into which words are divided while pronouncing them, are called syllables.
The Syllable is a unit of pronunciation consisting of a vowel alone or of a vowel with one or more
consonants. A vowel is the nucleus and consonant a marginal element in the syllable, that is, a
consonant either at the beginning or at the end of a syllable. A consonant at the end of a syllable
is called an arresting consonant, and at the beginning of a syllable is called releasing consonant.
The marginal elements are not obligatory. These may occur either before the nucleus or after the
nucleus, or some before and after the nucleus. The word pick consists of one syllable which
consists of two marginal elements /p/ a releasing consonant and /k/an arresting consonant and
of a nucleus /i/, which is a vowel. It is also possible to have a cluster of two or three consonants
before and/or after the nucleus. For example, in school/ sku: l/, we have the cluster of two
consonants/s/ and /k/ which is the first marginal element. Some syllables are made up of the
nucleus alone e.g. ‘eye’ or T /ai/. Usually it is a vowel, for example /i:/ in seat/si:t/, which forms
a nucleus in a syllable; but in words of more than one syllable in English the nucleus can also be
a consonant, e.g./n/ and/l/ in the second syllable of button and apple.
It is also possible to explain the syllable in terms of the pulmonic air-stream mechanism. In the
production of speech, the air from the lungs does not come out in a continuous stream at a
constant pressure. The muscles of the chest push the air out in small puffs at the rate of
approximately five times a second, and each puff of air produces a syllable. Each movement of the
muscles of the chest is known as a chest-pulse. In order to produce a stressed syllable a re-inforced
chest-pulse is used. The English words president has three syllables /prez-i-dent/, and the first
syllable is stressed. And it is on the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables and the way
they follow one another that the rhythm of a language depends.
The structure of a syllable can be represented by the formula CVC, C standing for consonant and
V for vowel. Examples of some common structures of syllables used in English are cited below:

The Structure of the The Exemplification of the The Nucleus
Syllable Structure
V I or eye/ai/ /ai/
CVC pack, back, lack, sack, that / æ /
CV die/dye/dai/ /ai/
VC  in/in/ /i/

 eat/i: t / /i:/
 add/æd/
 / æ /
VCC  ink/i k/ /i/
ŋ

 eagle/i : gl/ /i:/
CVCC fox foks/ / /
CCVC school/sku : 1/ /u:/
CCCVC  street/stri : t/ i/

 straight/streti/ /ei/
CCVCC crisp/krisp/ /i/
CVCCC masks/ma:sks/ /a:/

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