ELL2019S (2009)
Phonetics and Phonology
1. Introduction: articulatory phonetics and the organs of speech
Articulatory phonetics is the study of the production of sounds: how the organs of
speech are used to produce them.
Acoustic phonetics deals with propagation (transmission): what happens in the air
between the mouth of the speaker and the ear of the hearer.
Auditory phonetics deals with the hearing process and how speech sounds are
interpreted by the brain of the recipient.
Articulatory phonetics is the most basic of these.
The ‘vocal organs’: the lungs, the vocal folds, the tongue, the lips, etc., aren’t primarily
organs of speech at all.
The lungs.1 Most speech sounds in all languages, and all speech sounds in most
languages, are made by interfering with outgoing breath from the lungs.
The larynx. Inside the larynx are the first of the structures that can interfere with the
airstream: the vocal folds (sometimes called vocal cords).2 Their most important
function is to produce voice: a very rapid opening and closing in the airstream.
1
2
Ladefoged (3rd ed) pp. 1, 146, 129
Ladefoged pp. 1-2, 191, 210, 251, 272
1
2
3
The supralaryngeal vocal tract: a tube-like cavity (the pharynx)3 branching into two
other cavities: the nasal cavity and the oral cavity. The pharynx stretches from the top
of the larynx to the back of the nasal cavity, serving to contain a volume of air that can
be made to vibrate in sympathy with the vibration of the vocal folds.
The nasal cavity. If with the vocal folds vibrating the soft palate ( = velum)4 is lowered
so that the pharynx and nasal and oral cavities are connected, all the air in the connected
cavities vibrates with characteristic nasal effect. NB distinguish nasal5 from nasalised6
sounds.
The oral cavity. Much more important for speech than the nasal cavity, because
variable in dimensions and shape, and because it contains independently mobile organs
that can obstruct the airstream in various ways. Its variability of shape is due partly to
the mobility of (i) the lower jaw, and (ii) the lips, but overwhelmingly to the tongue,7 by
far the most important organ of speech (NB no accident that the word for ‘tongue’ in
many lgs is also the words for ‘language’.)
The oral cavity bounded at the top by the palate:8 dome-shaped structure of which the
front part is bony and fixed, and the back part (the soft palate) is moveable. In
phonetics the term palate is used by itself to refer exclusively to the hard palate; the soft
palate is called the velum. It is also important to distinguish the alveolar ridge9 and the
uvula.10
The tongue is divided for descriptive convenience into four major parts:
tip
blade — alveolar ridge
front — palate
back — velum
the blade, the front, and the back being the parts lying beneath, and articulating with,
the respective parts of the roof of the mouth as mentioned.
2. The articulatory description of consonants
At the various places of articulation, interference with the airstream may be brought
about in different ways. To specify a consonant in articulatory terms we need to specify
not just a PLACE of articlation but also a MANNER of articulation. Basically there are
three possibilities:
Ladefoged pp. 1, 4
Ladefoged p.4
5 Ladefoged pp. 8-9, 89-95
6 Ladefoged pp. 91-92, 95, 167
7 Ladefoged pp. 13-14, 78-80
8 Ladefoged p. 4, 161-2
9 Ladefoged pp. 3-4
10 Ladefoged p. 4
3
4
4
1. Complete CLOSURE of the air passage at a particular place. There are three different
types of sound involving complete closure: STOPS, ROLLS (TRILLS) and FLAPS.
Examples of STOPS are: bilabial [p], [b], [m], alveolar [t], [d], [n], velar [k], [], [].
When the closure is made within the oral cavity it may or may not be accompanied by
VELIC closure. If it isn’t, the airstream will go out entirely through the nose, giving
nasal sounds such as [m], [n] and []. When there IS velic closure the airstream can’t
get out through the nose, but nor can it get out immediately through the mouth, which is
blocked. Since the lungs are still pushing air upwards, the air is compressed within the
totally enclosed cavity, and when the mouth closure is removed this compressed air
explodes out of the mouth, as in pie, buy, tie, die, etc. This kind of sound, which has
compression and explosion, is called a plosive. Sometimes with these sounds, instead,
instead of removing the mouth closure, we remove the velic closure instead, and the
compressed air explodes up into the nose and out that way. This is called nasal plosion.
It happens in English when a nasal sound follows one of the other stops, as in acne,
Agnes, Stepney, Edna, cabman. Say these words and notice how the pent-up air
explodes behind the soft palate and into the nose.
ROLLS (TRILLS) consist of several rapidly repeated closures and openings of the air
passage, as in the rolled r-sounds of Scottish English or Italian (or in the human
imitation of a cat’s purr). For this sound the tongue makes several quick taps against
the alveolar ridge. The speed with which these closures and openings are made
demands the particpation of a particularly elastic organ, and this effectively restricts the
places at which they can be made. Basically the tongue-tip and the uvula are the parts
of the oral apparatus with the necessary elasticity, so we can have rolls only where the
tongue tip and the uvula can reach. The uvular roll is commonly found in a number of
European languages as an r-sound. (The lips can also be made to roll in a similar way –
brrrrr – but this is not found as a speech-sound.)
The speed of each closure and opening in a roll is clearly much greater than for the
stops, and it is this speed that characterises FLAPS and distinguishes them from the
stops. Flaps consist of a single fast opening and closing of the air passage. In a word
like mirror the rr may be made as an alveloar flap: one fast tap of the tongue-tip against
the alveolar ridge. So flaps (also called ‘taps’) are rolls with only one roll.
2. A NARROWING of the passage at a particular place, so that air forced through the
narrowing causes audible friction.
When two speech organs are brought very close together, the air forcing its way through
the resulting very narrow passage becomes turbulent, and this turbulence is heard as
friction noise. Sounds having such friction are called FRICATIVES ( = spirants). Some
fricatives are made with a rather high-pitched, hissy kind of friction (e.g. s and sh), and
such sounds are called SIBILANTS. Others, the non-sibilant fricatives, have a less hissy,
more diffuse kind of friction noise, like f [f] and th [].
3. More OPEN positions (‘approximation’), which don’t result in friction, but which are
nonetheless perceptually different from sounds made with no obstruction of the
airstream at all.
If two parts of the oral vocal apparatus are not so close together that they cause friction
they may nevertheless be palying a major part in shaping the cavities through which the
air flows. Say a long vvvvvvvvv and hear the friction coming from the labiodental
narrowing. Now very gently lower the lip away from the teeth until the friction just
disappears; you are left with a non-fricative sound, but one that is still labiodental in
effect because the lip-teeth approximation makes a difference in sound: lower the lip
5
right away from the teeth and notice the difference. Such a sound is called an
approximant ( = frictionless continuant).
3. The articulatory description of vowels
The primary cardinal vowels11









11
Ladefoged pp. 198-201
6



4. Phonetic transcription
Alphabetic writing, although essentially phonographic (i.e. the use of the letters bears
some relation to the sounds of speech), is very often inconsistent and illogical, and more
or less useless as it stands for phonetic transcription.12 This is especially true of
English. What is required is a phonetic alphabet, which gives one fixed value to each of
the symbols it uses. Phonetic alphabets use the letters of the normal alphabet, but
supplement them with specially designed symbols, and additional marks called
diacritics. Look at the following passages, given in normal writing, and then in
phonetic transcription.
(i)
The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when
a traveller came along wrapped in a warm cloak. They agreed that the one
who first succeeded in making the traveller take his cloak off should be
considered stronger than the other. Then the North Wind blew as hard as
he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveller fold his
cloak around him, and at last the North Wind gave up the attempt. Then
the Sun shone out warmly, and immediately the traveller took off his cloak.
And so the North Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the
stronger of the two.
A basic transcription of the above, giving citation-form pronunciations of the
individual words:
i    i      i   
             
           
               
              
12
Ladefoged pp. 25-33
7
               
             
    i       
_________________________________________________________
(ii)
For three hundred yards the two children alternately walked and trotted
beside the travellers; but then the boy ran ahead, for a gate now barred the
road. He heaved it off its latch, then pushed it wide back and open; and
stood there, staring at the ground, with a hand outstretched. The older
gentleman felt in his greatcoat pocket, and tossed a farthing down. The boy
and his sister both scrambled for it as it rolled on the ground, but the boy
had it first. Now once more they both stood, with outstretched small arms,
the palms upwards, heads bowed, as the rear of the cavalcade passed.
A basic transcription of the above, giving citation-form pronunciations of the individual
words:
          
              
              
          
          
              
             
8
            
 
____________________________________________________________
Some points about phonetic transcriptions:
1. Transcriptions differ as to how ‘broad’ or ‘narrow’ they are. There is no limit to the
amount of phonetic detail that might in principle be given.
2. There is an important distinction to be drawn between transcribing, however broadly
or narrowly, a particular individual’s utterance on a particular occasion, and
transcribing, however broadly or narrowly, a piece of a given language as generally
spoken in a given accent.
3. The transcriptions above do not represent any actual individual’s utterance of these
passages on any actual occasion. The were not made by listening to how someone
actually pronounced them. They represent a very generalised pronunciation (in a
certain accent) of the individual words concerned.
5. The consonants13 of English
oral stops14 (plosives):
i    i      i     
                
               
                   
                 
              
   i       
             
                  
              
13
Ladefoged pp. 49-66
9
           
                
              
             

p = voiceless bilabial plosive
b = voiced bilabial plosive
t = voiceless alveolar plosive
d = voiced alveolar plosive
k = voiceless velar plosive
 = voiced velar plosive
affricates:15
i    i      i     
               
               
                   
                
               
    i       
             
                  
              
           
                
              
             

14
15
Ladefoged pp. 49-55
Ladefoged pp. 11, 63, 165, 166-7
10
 = voiceless palatoalveolar affricate
 = voiced palatoalveolar affricate
(Notice that English has only two affricate sounds and that, on this evidence, they are
not especially common.)
11
fricatives:16
i    i      i     
         i      
i           i   i  
       i    i    i    
     i     i   i    
  i        i    
   i   i   i 
             
                  
              
           
                
              
             

 = voiceless labiodental fricative
 = voiced labiodental fricative
 = voiceless interdental fricative
 = voiced interdental fricative
 = voiceless alveolar fricative
 = voiced alveolar fricative
 = voiceless palatoalveolar fricative
 = voiceless glottal fricative
( = voiced palatoalveolar fricative – no example in either text)
16
Ladefoged pp. 61-63
12
nasal stops:
i    i      i     
               
               
                   
                
               
    i       
             
                  
              
           
                
              
             

 = bilabial nasal stop
 = alveolar nasal stop
 = velar nasal stop
13
approximants:17
i    i      i     
               
                
                   
                 
              
   i       
             
                  
              
           
                
              
             

 = alveolar lateral approximant
 = centralised approximant
 = palatal approximant
 = labiovelar approximant
____________________________________________________________________
The most important distinction among consonants is between the obstruents18 and the
resonants ( = sonorant consonants). The obstruents are the oral stops, the affricates
and the fricatives (i.e. the consonants that involve an obstruction of the airstream).
Obstruents characteristically come in voiced/voiceless pairs (English [h] is an
exception).
In contrast, resonants (nasals and approximants) are inherently voiced. Because there
is no obstruction of the airstream, if there is no voicing then, all other things being
equal, there is no useful sound. NB (1) Although the nasals are called stops, the
stoppage, which is in the mouth, does not obstruct the air, which exits unimpeded
17
18
Ladefoged pp. 64-66
Ladefoged pp. 62-63, 89-90
14
through the nose. NB (2) It is of course possible to send voiceless breath through the
articulatory posture for a resonant with enough force to induce friction. If e.g. you
produce a voiceless [m] with sufficient pressure (don’t try this in public when suffering
from nasal catarrh) you produce what might be called a voiceless bilabial nasal fricative.
But a vbnf is not (in English at any rate) a speech sound, but a sigh. However, some
resonants with induced friction are speech sounds: a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative,
symbolised [], is a regular sound in Welsh, for instance (and which is therefore not
referred to as a ‘resonant with induced friction’, but as a fricative). In English, the
palatal approximant [j] frequently becomes absorbed into a preceding glottal fricative
([h]), and the result is a voiceless palatal fricative ([]). E.g. ‘huge’ [] is often
pronounced []. But the general principle holds.
Some variant realisations of English obstruents
p b t d k           
The pairs at the same place of articulation are ultimately distinguished as fortis
(‘voiceless’) vs lenis (‘voiced’). Lenis sounds are (i) produced with less pressure, (ii)
regularly shorter than fortis sounds.
The reason ‘voiceless’ and ‘voiced’ are in scare quotes here is that although fortis
obstruents are always voiceless, lenis obstruents may be voiced (especially in the
environment of other voiced sounds, e.g. when intervocalic), but very often are not.
The [z] in lazy [] is fully voiced (contrast the [s] in lacy []). But the [z] in
dogs [] will not usually involve any more voicing than the [s] in cats [].
Nonetheless the [z] and the [s] here are still distinct: [z] is lenis and [s] is fortis.
Lenis vs fortis would therefore be preferable to voiced vs voiceless as general terms (i.e.
in contexts where no actual utterances are in question) for distinguishing these pairs.
But for better or worse the latter are traditional
pbtdk
Basically plosives (stop plus plosive release).
p, t, k aspirated initially in a stressed syllable E.g. proton is stessed on the first syllable;
the second syllable is unstressed. So the [t] here is not initial in a stressed syllable, and
is therefore not aspirated: []. (Note the diacritic for showing which syllable
is stressed.) But attack is stressed on the second syllable, which begins with [t]. So
here [t] is initial in a stressed syllable, and will be aspirated: [] (note the diacritic
for showing aspiration).
p,t,k cause devoicing or voiceless spirantisation of a following approximant. Compare
how you pronounce lay with how you pronounce play. In the latter the [l] will either be
devoiced: [], or spirantised ( = turned into a fricative): []. Note the
diacritic for devoicing and the special symbol for a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative.
An initial [s] suppresses aspiration. In this environment the distinction between the
voiced and voiceless members of the pairs [p,b], [t,d], [k,] is neutralised. So in top
[] the [t] is aspirated (monosyllabic words, if stressed at all, can only be stressed
on their only syllable), vs stop [], where the [t] is unaspirated because of the
preceding [s]. Note that in this environment an unaspirated [t] is equivalent to a
15
devoiced [d], i.e. []. The fortis/lenis distinction here is inoperative: there is no
possibility of contrast between words beginning [sp, st, sk] and words beginning [sb, sd,
s]. Say top, and then dop. They are very different. Now try saying stop and then
*sdop. Is there any difference at all? If not, you understand what is meant by saying
that the [t]/[d] distinction is neutralised in this environment.
Sometimes, especially intervocalically, the stop is not completely formed, giving a
short fricative sound, e.g. supper [], lacking [] ( = voiceless bilabial
fricative,  = voiceless velar fricative).
Incomplete plosives: when one follows another usually only one plosive release is
heard, e.g. in apt the p is incomplete []; also when following a nasal or lateral,
especially when homorganic (at the same place of articulation), e.g. goodness
[n], bottle [l] . In these cases the plosion of the stop merges with the
following resonant, and the stop is said to be nasally or laterally released (transcribed
with the appropriate superscript letter).
Glottalisation: a glottal stop sometimes accompanies or even replaces some of the oral
stops.
E.g. in what a hope! [] the vowel may be cut off by glottal closure, the p is
then formed, the glottal stop released, and the p exploded normally.
Complete
replacement by glottal stop: whiteness [n], that bus [], back gate
[], black car [].
, , , 
Palatoalveolar fricatives and affricates ( an affricate is a stop followed by fricative
release, never incomplete).
Some instances derive from sequences sj zj tj dj respectively e.g sure measure venture
endure; pronunciations with the palatoalveolar sound may alternate with these. This is
a very natural process of assimilation, but may be resisted, especially word initially (do
you say [ ], [[ ] for tune, tube)? On the other hand, nobody (?) says []
for sugar.

This obstruent is glottal , not oral.
Its occurrence is restricted: it must always be followed by a vowel, and tends to be
deleted from unstressed syllables. It might therefore be seen, not as a consonant sound
in its own right, but as a voiceless anticipation of the following vowel, and transcribed
accordingly.
16
‘The North Wind and the Sun’, showing:
i main stress in words of more than one syllable (superscript vertical stroke
immediately in front of the stressed syllable);
ii aspiration of voiceless plosives when onset of stressed syllable (superscript h after
the symbol for the plosive), e.g. came (l. 2), attempt (l. 8);
iii aspiration of voiceless plosives when onset of stressed syllable realised as induced
devoicing (super- or subscript ring over (under) the symbol in question) of
following approximant, e.g. traveller (l. 2), cloak (l. 3);
iv aspiration realised on following approximant as spirantisation ( = fricativisation),
e.g. disputing (l. 1), cloak (l. 4);
v non-aspirated (voiceless) plosives after [s] treated sometimes as devoiced
realisations of the corresponding voiced plosive, e.g. stronger (l. 2) (contrast
stronger in l. 5);
vi voiceless glottal fricative treated sometimes as devoiced onset to the following
vowel, e.g. his (l. 4) (contrast his in l. 7);
vii coda [l], i.e. ‘dark’ ( = velarised) [l] as [] (fold in l. 7);
viii fronted [k] between front vowels as palatal [c] (making in l. 4);
ix unreleased plosives (superscript upper right corner), e.g. did (l. 6), at (l. 7);
x substitution of glottal for oral stop (out in l. 8);
xi affricate formed by fusion of stop + jod (immediately in l. 9).
xii variable devoicing of ‘voiced’ obstruents in any position except intervocalically
(was in l. 10).
Notes:

(ii), (iii)/(iv) and (vii) are automatic, i.e. non-optional phonetic features of
the accent of English in question (and of many others).

An aspirated plosive will cause either (iii) or (iv) to a following approximant,
depending on how forcefully the cluster is produced. A devoiced but nonspirantised approximant will be strictly soundless. Unlike for [l], the IPA
provides no special symbol for a spirantised [].

The pairs of transcriptions referred to at (v) and (vi) are notational variants: there
is no difference of pronunciation represented by the different transcriptions of
stronger or his. As for (v), given neutralisation of the p/b, t/d, k/g distinctions
17
after [s], it is arbitrary that the sound actually occurring in this position should
be interpreted as an unaspirated p/t/k rather than as a devoiced b/d/g. (NB the
difference between unvoiced (= voiceless) and devoiced ( = basically voiced,
but without voicing in a given context.)

Re (viii): [k] is fronted (further forward in the mouth) in the environment of
front vowels (you’ll soon find out what a ‘front vowel’ is). If fronter than velar,
but not front enough to be palatal, it may be represented as [] (subscript plussign) or [k+].

(ix) – (xii) are ‘optional’, in the sense that the pronunciations represented
here are frequent, or even in some cases usual, but may be avoided.

(xi) may be seen as arising through the sequence [di] (followed by vowel) > [dj]
> [] (compare previous transcriptions of immediately).
OK, here we go:
i    i      i
        
        
      
         
              
       
          
        
          
18
     i   
   
19
6. The vowels of English
The monophthongs19 of a variety of (Southern British) English

















19

Ladefoged p. 74. On English vowels in general, see ch. 4
20






The short monophthongs of a variety of (Southern British) English
i    i      i   
             
           
               
              
               
             
    i       
_______________________________________________
The long monophthongs (with length marked)
i    i      i 
            
           
             
              
            
           
            
 i       
21
Note: ‘short’ and ‘long’ here mean that, other things being equal, when pronounced
carefully, in isolation, a word or syllable with a ‘short’ vowel will in fact have a shorter
vowel than a word or syllable with a ‘long’ vowel. (In this sense, vowels are sometimes
said to be ‘lexically’ short or long, to reflect that we are talking about how they would
be transcribed for purposes of indicating in a dictionary the pronunciation of individual
words.)
So the vowels in cat [], head [] sip [], soot [] are shorter than
the vowels in cart [], heed [], seep [], suit []. But note that in actual
speech both ‘short’ and ‘long’ vowels may be relatively longer or shorter in particular
contexts. For instance, vowels regularly lengthen before voiced consonants, which
means that the vowel in use [j] (verb) is longer than the vowel in use [s] (noun),
even though it’s the ‘same’ (lexically long) vowel in each case, just as the vowel in fish
[] is shorter than the vowel in fizz [], even though both have the vowel [], and
[] is lexically short. In rapid connected speech all vowels are liable to be shortened,
including ‘long’ ones. To help with indicating these subtleties, where necessary, the
IPA has a diacritic for ‘half long’, as in the transcription of use (noun) and fizz above.
Diphthongs are lexically long; the length marks are not used with diphthongs except
ad hoc to indicate extra length. So e.g. the extra length of the vowel in rise [] is
a case of lengthening the already (lexically) long diphthong in rice [].
Historically, diphthongs arise by the ‘breaking’ (i.e. failure to maintain the same
articulatory posture throughout its length) of a long monophthong.
22
7. Phonetics and phonetic transcription beyond English
‘The North Wind and the Sun’ in another language (phonetics is not just about
English!):
French (Parisian):
                 

           t  
 l            
                 
                
           a     
               
         
Some of the symbols here you have not encountered before: French has a number of
sounds that don’t occur in English.
Notice particularly :
(i) French has vowels represented by the symbols for the cardinal low front ([a]) and
mid-high front ([e]) vowels, and has a distinction between [e] and [].
(ii) French has three front rounded vowels corresponding to the front unrounded vowels
[i], [e], []. The IPA symbols for these are [y], [], [] respectively. Usually, front
vowels are unrounded, back vowels are rounded. But lip-rounding is a variable
independent of tongue position, and both front rounded and back unrounded vowels are
possible, although somewhat rare. Alongside the primary cardinal vowels there is a set
of secondary cardinal vowels, where the front vowel at a given height has the liprounding associated with the corresponding cardinal back vowel at the same height.
23
______________________________________________________________________
Some secondary cardinal vowels

(y) 


() 




() 


__________________________________________________________________
(iii) French has a set of nasalised vowels. These are represented by the corresponding
oral vowel symbol, plus the nasalisation diacritic.
If the above passage is written out as a piece of prose, we see that standard French
spelling is as useless as English when it comes to representing pronunciation:
La bise et le soleil se disputaient, chacun assurant qu’il était le plus fort,
quand ils ont vu un voyageur qui s’avançait, enveloppé de son manteau. Ils
sont tombés d’accord, que celui qui arriverait le premier a faire ôter son
manteau au voyageur, serait regardé comme le plus fort. Alors la bise s’est
24
mise à souffler de toute sa force; mais plus elle soufflait, plus le voyageur
serrait son manteau autour de lui; et à la fin la bise a renoncé à le lui faire
ôter. Alors le soleil a commencé à briller, et au bout d’un moment le
voyageur, réchauffé, a ôté son manteau. Ainsi la bise a dû reconnaître que
le soleil était le plus fort des deux.
What is striking here is the number of orthographic letters that correspond to nothing in
the phonetics.
8. The Phonology of Connected Speech
8.1 Introduction
8.1.1
There may be big differences between the citation-form pronunciation of a
word and the pronunciation of the same word in connected speech. As far as
English is concerned, the main differences can be understood in terms of four
phonological processes,20 which may occur separately or in various
combinations: (i) insertion: the addition of a sound to the citation-form
sequence; (ii) assimilation, whereby a sound changes in order to become more
like a neighbouring sound; (iii) reduction: replacing a ‘full’ consonant or vowel
with a ‘reduced’ version; (iv) the deletion or complete loss of sounds or
combinations of sounds; The third and fourth of these, reduction and deletion,
may be seen as different stages of one overall process. Complete loss may also
be the final outcome of assimilation.
8.1.2
‘Connected speech’, in this context, does not necessarily refer to long stretches
of speech. The phonological phenomena in question arise in fast and/or casual
speech, but may be evident in single-word utterances. For instance, the
reduction of the second vowel in photograph ] is a connectedspeech phenomenon even though it happens here in a single word, which might
occur as a one-word utterance.
8.1.3
There is by no means necessarily one definitive connected-speech
pronunciation of a word. Take the phrase fish and chips. The citation form
may be given as   ] (note the spaces, showing that this
transcription represents a slow, careful pronunciation of the individual words).
In connected speech, one thing that is likely to happen is that the [d] will
delete, because it is in the middle of a sequence of three consonants:
] (note the lack of spaces in the transcription, indicating that we
are now considering a single phonetic unit as pronounced, without reference to
word boundaries). Another thing that is likely to happen is that the second
vowel will reduce, because it is unstressed: [d]. Or, thirdly,
both processes may occur together, giving []. Fourthly, because
the schwa finds itself next to a resonant consonant capable of becoming
20
But see § 10 below for some remarks on what is meant by a ‘process’ in this context.
25
syllabic, it is likely to be deleted, giving []. So, apart from the
citation form, we have four possible connected-speech pronunciations of and.
8.2 Relexification
8.2.1
Although it is useful to analyse connected-speech pronunciations as derived
from citation-form pronunciations, it is important to realise that the latter are in
certain respects artificial and that in real life, for most purposes, connected
speech is the only kind of speech there is. A pronunciation like []
occurs overwhelmingly more frequently than  ]. In the course
of time this can give rise to relexification, whereby a connected-speech
pronunciation becomes the citation form.
8.2.2
Compare the words sandwich and Christmas. Like fish and chips both (at
least as far as spelling is concerned) seem to contain a medial sequence of three
consonants. In both cases a two-consonant pronunciation is much more likely,
with the second, as written, corresponding to nothing in the pronunciation:
], []. The question is whether the d of sandwich and the t
of Christmas should figure in the phonetic citation form. This comes down to
whether in your slowest and most careful pronunciation you would say
] and []. For me, ] is OK, but *[]
is not. In my speech Christmas has been relexified without the medial [ (NB
not by me personally – it occurred at some point in the history of the variety of
English I happen to speak). I.e. the pronunciation [] does not involve
a connected-speech deletion. It may have done so historically, but, in this
variety, there is no longer a possible pronunciation that retains the [. As it
happens, the Oxford English Dictionary concurs with these judgements: it
gives the pronunciations ] for sandwich but [] for
Christmas (and indeed says that in the past Christmas has sometimes been
spelled without the t). But other speakers may consider that in their most
careful pronunciation Christmas has a medial [t].
Every, family and buttery (adj.) all historically had three syllables. Every has
been relexified as a disyllable [] (no one ever says []); family is often
(usually?) [] but can still also be []; buttery is always [].
Frequency of usage is an important factor here.
8.2.3
Because spelling tends to lag behind changes in pronunciation, phonetic
relexification is liable to bring about a mismatch between pronunciation and
spelling. Given such a mismatch, one of two things is likely to happen
eventually. Either the change in pronunciation may be wholly or partially
reversed to realign it with the spelling (a ‘spelling pronunciation’), or – more
rarely – the spelling may eventually be changed to fit the new pronunciation.
Two English place names illustrate these possibilities. Daventry is a town in
Northamptonshire, whose name was within living memory pronounced
[]. Now it is invariably . Conversely, Wyrardisbury is a
village in Buckinghamshire whose name was and is pronounced .
Nowadays it is spelt Wraysbury. Changes in the pronunciation of proper
names are especially liable to speedy lexification – your name, after all, is what
you are called – but note that the complex reductions that may characterise the
connected-speech pronunciation of proper names are not necessarily typical of
other words.
8.2.4
When a connected-speech relexification is enshrined in spelling, the result may
be a doublet, i.e. a pair of words originally one that has split into two. ]
is a connected-speech pronunciation of courtesy (deletion of the unstressed
second vowel): this pronunciation has given a separate word curtsey (a curtsey
being a kind of courtesy). Once this has happened, the reduced form ceases or
26
almost ceases to be available as a connected-speech variant of the original
word: courtesy is rarely pronounced ] any more, because that would be
the word curtsey.
8.2.5
Or there may be a split that gives rise to what are perceived, totally or partially,
as separate word forms without any accompanying semantic differentiation. In
ordinary English speech, auxiliary verbs when combined with personal
pronouns, or with personal pronouns and the negative marker not, almost
always occur in forms distorted by connected-speech processes that have come
to compete with the citation forms themselves. I am, he is not, we have, I shall,
they do not etc., are usually I’m, he isn’t, we’ve, I’ll, they don’t etc. In some
cases there are alternative reductions: for he is not do you say he isn’t or he’s
not? Granted that there are separate spellings available for the reduced forms,
the question is whether e.g. he can’t is just a (very common) way of
pronouncing he cannot, or whether it has to some extent an independent
existence. Some people say ‘he can’t’ but write he cannot, at least in anything
like a formal context. Some people would in appropriate contexts read he
cannot aloud as ‘he can’t’. For such speakers the reduced forms still have the
status of spoken variants of the full forms, even though the connected-speech
variants can be written as if they were different lexical items. And no doubt
one wouldn’t expect can’t to have its own dictionary entry alongside cannot.
For other speakers, who depending on context sometimes both say and write
can’t, sometimes cannot, the two are on the way to separation. In some
instances this process is helped along by the degree of divergence between the
two forms: he won’t is quite an idiosyncratically long way from he will not,
with a vowel change and a consonant loss that don’t conform to a general
pattern of connected-speech changes.
8.2.6
The forms I’ll, she’ll, we’ll etc. which reduce both I shall and I will, she shall
and she will etc., have contributed to the confusion that reigns over the
difference between shall and will. Does I shall go tomorrow mean anything
different from I will go tomorrow? Historically it did, and theoretically it still
does, according to some grammarians. But most English-speakers today are
extremely vague about what the difference might be. What people actually say,
most of the time, is I’ll. Any incipient confusion between I shall and I will is
magnified by the conflation of the two in the connected-speech form.
8.2.7
Something similar accounts for the ‘substandard’ substitution of of for have in
John should never of done it, he must of been out of his mind. Note that have
has two distinct functions as an English verb. There is lexical have, as in I
have three eggs. And there is auxiliary have, which forms ‘perfect’ tenses of
the verb, as in I have boiled three eggs. Of substitutes exclusively for auxiliary
have: no one ever says *I of three eggs. The point about auxiliary have is that,
except for special emphasis or contrast, it never takes stress, and in most
contexts reduces to ], as in she could have (could’ve) tried harder, or just
[v], as in I’ve. The preposition of has connected-speech forms that overlap
with these: ] or just [], as in cup of tea ()]. The of-for-have
phenomenon arises from a faulty interpretation (or re-interpretation) of what
citation form a perceived ] is connected with, facilitated by the fact that
both of and auxiliary have are small and semantically negligeable ‘function’
words. (The difference between a ‘faulty’ interpretation and a re-interpretation
is entirely a matter of acceptance: if and when sufficient speakers of sufficient
social standing come to say and write John should never of done it, then we
have a re-interpretation: a change in the language rather than a vulgar error.)
27
9. Phonological processes in connected speech: reduction, deletion,
assimilation, epenthesis
‘The North Wind and the Sun’ showing vowel reduction in connected speech:
1 



5 




10





15





20

28
Notes:

Reduction to schwa is a function of lack of stress. Notice how often a schwa
immediately precedes a stressed syllable.

No lexically short vowels (except [], which in this accent functions as an
equivalent to schwa, and is not further reduced) survive with their full quality
unless they are stressed.

The indefinite article (a) is reduced throughout to schwa. Its citation-form
pronunciation ([]) only occurs as a citation form, or under contrastive stress,
as in ‘that’s a ([]) book, but it’s not the book’.

Two instances of the citation-form pronunciation of the definite article []
survive: the other (l. 9) and the attempt (l. 15). In all other cases the is []. In
this accent [] is retained in connected speech as the prevocalic allomorph of the
article. The reason is that [i] is one of the two vowels (the other is [u]) with a
consonantal counterpart: in this case the glide [j]. Before another vowel [i]
generates an offglide that serves to break the vocalic hiatus: [],
[]. Other and attempt here thus begin with a very light [j]-sound. But
NB it is not a full [j], which is treated as a regular consonant, and takes the
regular preconsonantal allomorph: contrast [] the ale with [] the
Yale (key, alumnus…)

The latent [] of stronger (l. 20) surfaces before a vowel, because it is free to
become the onset of the vowel’s syllable. The syllabification here is:
[....]
29
As above, plus consonant reductions, assimilations and deletions (deletion sites
indicated ad hoc by *):


*

5



m
*
10

*
*

**
15
***

**

*
20

30
Notes:

Just as reduction of vowels to schwa is the first stage of a process whose second
stage is outright vowel deletion, so glottalisation of stops is the first step towards
outright consonant deletion. Either may happen, depending on how
fast/carelessly you’re speaking. Compare [] (l. 7) with [] (l. 12)

The very common word and is very frequently reduced in casual speech to a
syllabic nasal, as in l. 1. and the to [], as in l. 3.

The deletion of the [t] in [] (l. 7) has caused the resulting [ss]
sequence to fuse into one long [s]. Similarly, the assimilation of [n] to [m] in
[m] (l. 8) has caused lengthening of the [m]. Using the length mark to
indicate a long consonant is logical but, unfortunately, unusual; by convention the
length mark is usually reserved for vowels, and long consonants are indicated by
doubling the consonant symbol ([mm]) – which, if as is usual the
ligature is not used in this context – leaves you no way of indicating as
phonetically different a sequence of two identical consonants.
31
Consonantal epenthesis in English:
1. prince
triumph
Corinth
length
amongst
once
warmth
nymph
tenth









2(a) hear
wear
star
stir
clear
store
director







hearing
wearing
starry
stir up
clear up
store away
director of







(b) ma

ma and pa

saw

saw an accident

Russia 
Russia and Poland 
draw

draw a circle

Laura 
Laura Ashley

diploma  diploma in drama 
idea

idea of his

Accents of English vary as to whether they are rhotic or non-rhotic. Rhotic accents
essentially have an r-sound (whether it be a trill or an approximant) wherever there is an
r in the spelling. Non-rhotic accents do not have an r in syllable codas.21 Hence, in
2(a) above, the alternation between a form with a pronounced r (in this accent
phonetically []) and a form without. The fact that non-rhoticity gives rise to such
alternations explains the so-called ‘intrusive r’ phenomenon illustrated in 2(b).
A syllable coda consists of the consonant(s) that may appear after the vowel of a syllable. Non-rhotic
speakers pronounce the r in red, arrow, hurry, because they appear before the vowel of the syllable, but not in art,
bird, father, where the r is after the vowel. Rhotic speakers pronounce r wherever it occurs. More on this later.
NB certain South African English speakers, although basically non-rhotic, sometimes pronounce a phrasefinal or even word-final r. I.e. although they would never have an r sound in bird, they might do in burr.
21
32
Assimilation22
Assimilation is the process whereby one sound becomes more like an adjacent sound. It
is, in general, the single most important phonological process.
The interaction of assimilation and epenthesis:
We say that in English a regular noun forms its plural by adding –s. Thus bat ~ bats,
tiger ~ tigers, tank ~tanks, field ~fields. Sometimes we spell the plural ending –es: in
such cases the e may or may not correspond to something extra in the pronunciation. So
class ~ classes, church ~ churches, where the plural has two syllables as compared with
one in the singular, but potato ~ potatoes, where the e seems to be purely orthographic
(= present in the spelling, but not corresponding to anything in the pronunciation).
Looking at the matter phonetically, things are rather more complicated. Phonetically
there are three variants of the –(e)s plural ending:[s], [z] and [z]. How are they
distributed?

[z] occurs when the singular form ends in [s], [z], [], [], [] or [] (i.e.
when it ends in a sibilant sound). So: glass []~ glasses [], phase
[] ~ phases [], splash [] ~ splashes [z], [] ~
[], [] ~ [z], etc.

[s] occurs when the singular ends in a voiceless sound other than a sibilant. So:
[] ~ [s], [t] ~ [ts] etc.

[z] occurs when the singular ends in a voiced sound other than a sibilant. So:
lamb [lm] ~ lambs [lmz], [] ~ [z], [fild] ~ [fildz], []
~ [z], etc.
As speakers of English we are not usually aware that there are three different regular
plural endings. Psychologically there is just one: -(e)s. The reason that there are
phonetically three endings is that the precise phonetic form taken by –(e)s must adapt
itself to the particular phonetic environment it finds itself in, which will be different in
different cases. But, given that we feel these to be three different versions of the ‘same’
thing, can we establish one of them as the basic form of which the others are variants?
22

If we take [z] to be the basic form, we can say that it appears in full when
preceded by a sibilant, that the [] is dropped after anything but a sibilant, and
that the [z] changes to an [s] after a voiceless non-sibilant (manner – in this case,
voicing – assimilation).

If we take [s] to be the basic form, we can say that it appears as such after a
voiceless non-sibilant, that it voices to [z] after a voiced non-sibilant (again,
manner assimilation), and that if the singular ends in a sibilant, the [z] is
preceded by an inserted [] (epenthesis).

If we take [z] to be the basic form, we can say that it appears as such after a
voiced non-sibilant, that it unvoices to [s] after a voiceless non-sibilant (voicing
assimilation again), and that epenthesis is required after a sibilant.
Ladefoged p. 109
33
Is there any way of choosing between these statements? Note that it is a basic rule of
English phonetics ( = a phonotactic rule) that obstruent clusters must agree for voicing.
You can have a cluster of two voiced obstruents, or of two voiceless obstruents, but not
a cluster consisting of both voiced and voiceless obstruents. It is another basic rule that
you can’t have a sequence of two sibilant obstruents. So, whichever of the three
alternants you start with, the phonotactics is going to give you the other two in the
appropriate complementary contexts. Is there a reason for preferring one way of stating
how the system works to another?
What you need is a context where the choice between [s], [z] and [z] is not enforced by
the basic phonetics. The illegality of obstruent sequences such *[ds], *[kz], *[sz] has
nothing particularly to do with the formation of noun plurals. It applies across the
board: there are no words in English, whether nouns, plural nouns, or anything else, that
have such obstruent sequences. So, the question is whether there is an environment
where as far as the phonetics is concerned you have a choice, and where the noun
pluralisation system makes a choice.
Yes, there is. After a vowel, English phonotactics allows you to have either [s] or [z]
quite freely. So we have pairs of words like his [] ~ hiss [s], prize [] ~
price [], etc. But look what happens when the vowel in question is the final
segment of a singular noun, to which you are going to add a sibilant to form the plural.
In every case, the plural of a noun whose singular ends in a vowel adds [z].
Phonetically (phonotactically) it could add [s]. But that never happens with a plural
noun. Take the sequence [b…] You can follow the vowel [] with either [s] or [z].
If you add [s] you get [bs] brass, which is not, and could not be, a plural noun. If you
add [z], you get the plural of bra.
That is an argument for taking [z] to be the basic form. The argument can be extended:
when you get the epenthetic [] after a sibilant, as in churches etc., once again,
phonotactically, you could have either [s] or [z]: there is nothing unpronounceable or
unEnglish about the sequence […s…], as in hiss, list , etc. But when the ending of a
plural noun is in question you only ever get [z].
Exactly the same distribution of forms, and the same arguments for taking [z] to be
basic, apply to [s], [z], [z] as allomorphs of the ‘apostrophe s’ possessive or genitive
morpheme, as in Jack’s [s], John’s [z], Alice’s [z], and as allomorphs of the 3sg
present verb ending, as in he stamps [s], she stammers [z], he preaches [z]. And
(although in this case things are a little more complicated) the same kind of distribution,
this time involving the plosives [t], [d], applies to the ‘weak’ past-tense ending in verbs:
she danced [t], he smiled [d], they landed [d]. Notice that, as it happens, in these
examples the psychological unity of the ending is reflected in the spelling: as with [s],
[z], [z] there are three different pronunciations, but in each case the corresponding
spelling is –ed. But note that orthographic unity does not apply across the board –
consider burned ~ burnt and similar pairs, where there are different spellings but not or
not always (for many speakers) different pronunciations.
These are called morphophonetic (or morphophonological) alternations, so called
because they are phonetic (or phonological) adjustments to how a given morpheme is
pronounced, giving rise to a series of allomorphs.
Here we have a transcription of one of the passages that abstracts away from certain
morphophonological alternations. (It also, incidentally, abstracts away from the
rhotic/non-rhotic distinction):
34
   +z       
  +          
+       +z   +d    
          
+d        
 +d          +d
    +d          
      +d  +z  +z
 +z        +d
10. The fictional nature of phonological processes
What we are talking about here is, essentially, phonological relationships. For instance,
there are phonological relationships (of different kinds) between the [p] of [p] and
the [p] of [sp], between the [t] of [] and the [d] of [], between the [n] of
[] and the [m] of [], and so on and so forth. We recognise that the
alternations here ([p] ~ [p], [t] ~ [d], [n] ~ [m]) are, to whatever extent, systematic,
predictable and therefore part of the subject matter of a phonological acount of a
language – or, if generalisable across different languages – of language generally.
Such phonological relationships are usually conceived of in dynamic terms. That is to
say, we discuss them in terms of phonological processes. We don’t simply set e.g.
[p] and [sp] down side by side and compare and contrast them, but talk about a
process whereby one alternant ‘becomes’ or ‘changes into’ another. So in this case we
talk of a process of aspiration, converting an unaspirated [p] in [sp] into an aspirated
[p] in [p]. And then we look for the general conditions under which this process
operates: in English a voiceless plosive is aspirated if it is initial in a stressed syllable,
but not if it occurs as the second element in a cluster after [s]. But it is important to
remember that this talk of ‘processes’ does not model or correspond to what actually
happens in speaking or in interpreting speech: when we produce an aspirated [p] in
[p] there is no sense in which this is somehow the result of actually ‘doing
something’ to an unaspirated [p]: we just say [p]. One reason it is important to
remember this is that it explains why there is no answer to a question e.g. about which
way round such a process operates. Why don’t we take the aspirated plosive as basic
and state the circumstances in which a converse process of ‘de-aspiration’ takes place?
Well, we could, in principle. In practice such choices are determined, if possible, by the
overall economy, neatness etc. of the resulting description. Sometimes it makes no
difference, and the choice is arbitrary. The thing to bear in mind is that there is no right
or wrong in the matter: talk of processes is a way of describing relationships, not a way
of stating what speakers actually do when speaking their language.
We have already looked at a certain range of phonological processes, when we
discussed the phonology of connected speech. So, for instance, we looked at the way in
35
which a transcription like [] relates to a transcription like
[] in terms of processes such as deletion, vowel reduction, etc. One
again, this talk of processes is figurative: there’s no sense in which we arrive at an
utterance like [] by ‘starting from’ [] and then proceeding
to delete segments, reduce vowels, etc. Nor, as hearers, do we understand the utterance
by performing the converse operations and reconstructing the citation form.
In fact, what we call ‘connected speech’ is simply speech; the ‘citation forms’ from
which we derived the connected speech forms are artificial, to be heard, if at all, only in
special contexts such as elocution lessons, etc. Citation forms are the result of an
attempt to codify the ‘full’ or ‘correct’ pronunciation of individual words. The reason
for starting from citation forms and then proceeding to explain how connected speech
pronunciations differ is simply that it’s a convenient way of getting a handle on the
phonological phenomena we want to look at: this kind of analysis doesn’t represent the
‘reality’ of speech as it is for either speakers or hearers.
This explains several things that might have puzzled you. It explains why there is often
doubt as to what the citation form ‘really’ is. How would you transcribe banana?
Probably something like [, with schwas in the unstressed syllables. But we
know that schwa in English is at least very often the result of what we call the ‘process’
of vowel reduction. Why shouldn’t we treat all occurrences of schwa as the ‘result of’
schwa reduction? In this case that would mean setting up a citation form such as
[], and then derive [ from it as a connected- speech form. There is
no very good answer to the question. The pragmatic rule of thumb we have been
working with is: are there any circumstances at all in which we might pronounce a
given citation form? If we are going to treat schwa as always and everywhere derived
by reduction from some other vowel, that would require finding some other vowel to
reduce to schwa in a case like the suffix(es) –er, as in agent nouns like driver or
comparatives like faster. But clearly (at any rate if we’re non-rhotic) we never do have
any other vowel here. So we treat the schwa as basic and ‘given’. At the other end of
the spectrum, consider the first syllable of the verb (or adjective) compact [.
Here we have no hesitation in deriving the schwa via reduction from : we have the
noun compact, with stress on the first syllable, which always has . In between
there’s a large number of cases where the do-you-ever-pronounce-it-like-that? criterion
doesn’t give a clear answer. Do we ever pronounce banana as []? I for one
have no very clear intuition : I suppose I just about might say [] if I was, so to
speak, spelling out its most ‘correct’ pronunciation as clearly as I could for the benefit
of a child or a foreigner, especially if I wanted to suggest the spelling, but I wouldn’t be
surprised if other English-speakers disagreed with me.
So this criterion for deciding on a citation form is unsatisfactory, if you expect or hope
that it will yield a clear, determinate answer in all cases. But that shouldn’t be too
surprising and not at all alarming, if you remember that in the end citation forms are
artificial constructs set up for various metalinguistic purposes – in this case, to provide a
convenient format in which to make statements about phonology.
However, not only is the criterion difficult to apply in many cases, its usefulness is in
any case limited, and we come up against that limit if we want to look in the most
general possible way at phonological processes. Applying it, or trying to apply it gives
you a phonological description in which some processes are identified as such, whereas
others are left hidden beneath transcriptions.
Let me explain what I mean by that. You’re already familiar with the distinction
between broad and narrow transcriptions. The very first transcriptions you looked at
were quite broad, with a lot of systematic phonetic detail left out. So you transcribed
both pat and spat with an ordinary [p], leaf and feel with an ordinary [l], and so on.
Then you learned about some systematic alternations, between aspirated and
unaspirated [p], between ‘clear’ and ‘dark’ [l], and so on, which would be marked as
36
such in a narrower transcription. So you progressed from transcribing pat as [] to
transcribing it as [p]. And leaf and feel similarly. In terms of the broad / narrow
distinction, a broad transcription allows aspiration, or velarisation, to emerge as such,
i.e. as processes of aspirating or velarising, not represented in the transcription as
already ‘there’, but accounted for in a phonological rule for interpreting such a
transcription. Whereas a narrow transcription simply represents an aspirated plosive as
aspirated and an unaspirated plosive as unaspirated. Unlike the broad transcription, it
doesn’t analyse the aspiration process out of the transcription – i.e. it doesn’t abstract
away from aspiration).
Suppose we forget about the broad/narrow distinction, and instead set about applying
the do-you-ever-pronounce-it-like-that? criterion to the question what to include in the
transcription and what to abstract away from. In terms of that criterion, aspiration
would have to be left in the transcription. Because in almost all accents of English,
voiceless plosives are routinely aspirated when stressed-syllable-initial. Leaving aside
the speech of second-language English speakers whose first language doesn’t have
aspiration, there simply isn’t a pronunciation of a word like pat, no matter how
‘careful’, without the aspiration.
In contrast, the criterion does allow you to abstract away from the nasal assimilation in
phrases like chain gang, in pieces, because there are alternative pronunciations that
don’t have the assimilation. So we can derive chain gang with a velar nasal from chain
gang with an alveolar by talking about a process of nasal assimilation.
But, as against that, you have to treat some cases of word-internal nasal assimilation, as
in [] (cf. []) as ‘basic’, according to the criterion, because there is
no other pronunciation of impossible. You can’t set up *[] as the citation
form, because it’s never pronounced like that. And this makes it different from
incredible, because alongside the pronunciation with the velar, you can also have the
alveolar.
We have described this situation by saying that in a case like impossible the nasal
assimilation has been lexicalised (i.e. made part of the citation form), whereas in
incredible it hasn’t. That is true. But if we want to look in the broadest possible way at
phonological processes, we aren’t concerned about the question whether in particular
words a process has been lexicalised.
One reason for that is that lexification is an historical process, and the phonological
processes we want to investigate cut across the distinction between synchronic and
diachronic ( = historical) linguistics. Phonological processes give rise to synchronic
phonological alternations, but also to historical phonological change. For instance, the
plural of house [h] is houses [h]. We take it that the same stem morpheme
appears in both forms, but there is an alternation between [s] and [z] as the final
consonant of the stem. There is a phonological process that takes place to cause the
alternation – either voicing (if we take the final consonant as it appears in the singular as
basic) or devoicing (if the plural stem is basic), and in a case like this the process is
synchronic: it applies as between different forms found in the language at the same
time. The word knight was once pronounced, as the spelling suggests, with an initial
[k]. There has been an historical change in English whereby initial velar + nasal
clusters have been reduced by dropping the velar (cf. kneel, gnat, gnaw), i.e. an
historical process of cluster simplification. As it happens, in this case there is no
synchronic alternation – there is no coexistent form of a word like knight that retains the
[k].
So we want to treat the various instances of a process like nasal assimilation as what
they are – instances of the same process, and not confuse the analysis by insisting on
irrelevant criteria (e.g. has it been lexicalised in particular words?) for what is included
in a transcription and what is abstracted out of it as a general process. In short, we’re
37
going to allow for transcriptions that are much more abstract (i.e. further away from a
transcription of any actual pronunciation) than even the broadest transcription you have
seen so far. In fact in the end we’re going to replace the broad vs narrow distinction
with an abstract vs concrete distinction. But that’s enough for now: this will be pursued
further if you study historical linguistics next year. Now it’s time to turn to
phonological structure above the level of the segment.
38
Suprasegmental Phonology
1 Syllables
1. 1 Introduction
1.1.1 Everyone finds syllables fairly easy to identify. But people who have not been
educated in an alphabetic writing system do not automatically find it easy to think
of syllables as made up of segments. Thinking of syllables in this way was what
led to the alphabet, which has apparently only been invented once. (The various
different extant alphabets are merely variations on the Greek version.)
1.1.2 Although there are usually no practical difficulties in saying how many syllables
there are in a word or phrase in one’s own language (but for English see exceptions
in §1.1.3 below), the syllable is difficult to define in phonetic terms; i.e. it is hard to
say what a syllable is or to find a universally applicable objective procedure for
identifying the boundaries between them. Hence the definition that a syllable is
what the word syllable has three of.
1.1.3 Three examples of syllable-counting difficulty for English-speakers. They all have
to do with the variable extent of glide-formation.
(1) How many syllables in words containing a long high front vowel followed by a
velarised ( = ‘dark’) [l]? E.g. meal, seal, real. Some would say that these are
monosyllabic: [mil], [sil], [il]. The problem is that a velarised [l] tends to
causes retraction and lowering of a preceding vowel. So even for those for whom
there is just one vowel here, it is liable to diphthongise, moving towards a backer
and lower quality: perhaps [l]. And this diphthong may be perceived as a
sequence of two vowels ([]), giving a disyllabic analysis. Furthermore, the
high front vowel generates an offglide, hence a narrow transcription []. In the
extreme, the offglide may be perceived as fully segmental: [], so that we now
have a full-blown CVC second syllable (mee-yull).
(2) How many syllables (for non-rhotic speakers) in words like hire, fire, hour?
The orthodox pronunciation (in SBE) is probably [] [] [], i.e. two
syllables. But there is variation as to whether these pronunciations are considered
to be mono- or disyllabic. This depends on the extent to which you allow an
offglide to appear after the diphthong: i.e. even if you think you’re saying []
you are probably in fact saying [], which may become [], i.e. CVCV
– two syllables. If you suppress the offglide you are more likely to perceive only
one syllable, especially if the final schwa is unemphatic, which will tend to
encourage the idea that the three vowels form a unitary triphthong.
Do you think you have different pronunciations of hire and higher, flour and
flower? (In this latter case the vowel in question is [] – which in many people’s
speech more like [] – i.e. low and either back or moving back, so the glide in
question is [].) If you do, it’s probably a matter of having one syllable in the first
of each pair, two in the second. Flour and flower is an interesting case: historically
there was just one word, whose most usual spelling was flour (meaning both
‘flower’ and ‘the finest part, i.e. the flower, of the wheat’); the definite spelling
differentiation of the two senses dates only from the eighteenth century.
(3) How many syllables in words like mediate, heavier, neolithic, which contain
unstressed high vowels followed by another vowel without an intervening
39
consonant? The vowel is variably likely either to generate an offglide or itself to
turn into a glide. So e.g. [] (three syllables) is liable to become either
[] > [], or alternatively [] (two syllables).
1.2 The importance of the syllable as a phonological unit
1.2.1 The fact that syllables are important units is illustrated by the history of writing:
many writing systems use or used a syllabary: one symbol for each syllable. The
development of the alphabet involved splitting syllables into their perceived
components. About 4000 years ago the Greeks modified the Semitic syllabary so
as to represent consonants and vowels by separate symbols; later alphabets
(Roman, Cyrillic, etc.) derive from the Greek.
1.2.2 There are many phonological generalisations that can only be stated clumsily, if at
all, without reference to the syllable. For example, it’s commonly said that the
difference between rhotic and non-rhotic varieties of English is that the latter don’t
have ‘postvocalic’ r. This is an attempt to state the facts without reference to the
syllable concept. So it is said that the r in bird or father is not pronounced, in nonrhotic English, because it comes after a vowel. But so does the r in hurry, yet the r
here is pronounced. So the statement of where r doesn’t appear has to be modified
to something like ‘not after a vowel, unless the r is itself followed by a vowel’. It’s
much easier – and truer, in the sense that it captures more accurately what is going
on – to say simply that in non-rhotic English r doesn’t appear in syllable codas. (In
hu.rry the r is the onset of the second syllable.)
1.2.3 For another example, consider the distribution of [] as a variant of , in those
English accents that have this. Cat can be [], nightly can be [], right
one [], night rate [] but the (first) t in words such as entail,
nitrate, entwine is much less likely to be a glottal stop. So where can you have []
substituting for [t]? Notice how difficult it would be to state the distribution in
terms merely of sequences of segments, as such. (The pair night rate and nitrate
are significant here: they are near-identical except that the former allows the glottal
stop and the latter does not.) Any such statement would be clumsy and
unrevealing, and would require the acknowledgement of exceptions: although
patrol [] never has a glottal stop, petrol may (for some speakers). A much
better way of stating the distribution is with reference to syllable structure. [] can
appear for  syllable-finally, but not syllable-initially. The explanation for the
fact that some speakers may pronounce petrol as [ is that there are two
ways of syllabifying the word: pet.rol or pe.trol (see also §1.8.4 below).
1.2.4 Spoonerisms provide further evidence for the importance of the syllable as a
phonological unit. A spoonerism is a speech error in which segments or clusters
are swapped around. So round moon might come out as *mound rune. I.e. the first
Cs of the words have been switched. But dear queen if spoonerised, would not be
*kear dween but *queer dean. That is to say, the correct generalisation here is that
syllable onsets (see §1.6) may be switched round.
1.2.5 Syllable structure also allows a neat explanation of why certain consonant
sequences may appear word-medially or across a word boundary within a phrase,
but not word-initially. Given that sleepwalk [pw], lab worker [bw], live wire [vw],
leafworm [fw] are perfectly good English, why are *pwell, *bwee *vwoot *fwite
impossible English words? Because the relevant phonotactic rule is that the
sequences in question mustn’t be tautosyllabic – they can occur as sequences, so
long as they aren’t in the same syllable.
40
1.2.6 Here is a French example:
grève  ‘strike’ ~ gréviste  ‘striker’
crème  ‘cream’ ~ écrémé  ‘creamed’
sèche  ‘dry’ ~ sécher  ‘to dry’
Liège  ‘Liege’ ~ Liégeois  ‘of/from Liege’
j’espère  ‘I hope’ ~ espérer  ‘to hope’
je cède  ‘I give in’~ céder  ‘to give in’
1.2.7 Another illustration from French.
1.
l’ami
‘the friend’
###
..
.
2.
le petit ami
‘the little friend’
####
....
...
3.
le bon ami
‘the good friend’
####
...
...
4.
les amis
‘the friends’
#+#+#
..
..
5.
les petits amis
‘the little friends’
#+#+#+#
....
...
6.
les bons amis
‘the good friends’
#+#+#+#
...
...
41
7.
l’amie
‘the friend’ (f.)
##+#
...
.
8.
la petite amie
‘the little friend’ (f.)
##+#+#
......
...
9.
la bonne amie
‘the good friend’ (f.)
##+#+#
.....
...
‘the friends’ (f.)
#+#++#
...#
..
10. les amies
11. les petites amies ‘the little friends’ (f.)
#+#++#++#
......
...
12. les bonnes amies ‘the good friends’ (f.)
#+#++#++#
.....
...
13. le chat
‘the cat’
###
.
.
14. le petit chat
‘the little cat’
####
...
..
15. le bon chat
‘the good cat’
####
..
..
42
16. les chats
‘the cats’
#+#+#
.
.
17. les petits chats
‘the little cats’
#+#+#+#
...
..
18. les bons chats
‘the good cats’
#+#+#+#
..
..
19. la chatte
‘the cat’ (f.)
##+#
..
.
20. la petite chatte
‘the little cat’ (f.)
##+#+#
.....
..
21. la bonne chatte
‘the good cat’ (f.)
##+#+#
....
..
22. les chattes
‘the cats’ (f.)
#+#++#
..
.
23. les petites chattes
‘the little cats’ (f.)
#+#++#++#
.....
..
‘the good cats’ (f.)
#+#++#++#
....
..]
24.
les bonnes chattes
43
1.2.8 We can see from §1.2.7 that French is a language where syllable boundaries
frequently fail to coincide with word boundaries. This can be further illustrated
from La bise et le soleil (‘The North Wind and the Sun’):
(i) normal writing:
La bise et le soleil se disputaient, chacun assurant qu’il était le plus fort, quand ils
ont vu un voyageur qui s’avançait, enveloppé de son manteau. Ils sont tombés
d’accord, que celui qui arriverait le premier à faire ôter son manteau au voyageur,
serait regardé comme le plus fort. Alors la bise s’est mise à souffler de toute sa
force; mais plus elle soufflait, plus le voyageur serrait son manteau autour de lui; et
à la fin la bise a renoncé à le lui faire ôter. Alors le soleil a commencé à briller, et
au bout d’un moment le voyageur, réchauffé, a ôté son manteau. Ainsi la bise a dû
reconnaître que le soleil était le plus fort des deux.
(ii) word-by-word transcription:
                  
        
  t   
l               
                   
                  
    a            
                  
(iii) connected-speech transcription showing syllable boundaries, with highlighting
of syllables that cut across word boundaries:
.....................
.
44
..................t.
.....l.................
..
....................
....................
..................a.....
.....................
.
...............
The extent in practice to which codas become onsets depends on where pauses
occur, which depends on speech style, etc. In this transcription all conceivable
instances have been marked, but the process will not take place across a pause.
Note the lowering of  to  in et (l. 1), soufflé (l. 4) – cf . §1.2.6.
Note that the retention and deletion of coda consonants exemplified in §1.2.7 is
sensitive to grammatical environment. E.g. the [n] of chacun assurant (l. 1) and
the [z] of plus elle (l. 4) disappear notwithstanding the possibility in this context of
becoming the onset of the next syllable. The historical final consonant of certain
lexical items, e.g. et ‘and’ never appears in any environment.
1.3 The structure of the syllable
1.3.1 A syllable obligatorily contains a nucleus, and in the case of syllables consisting of
a single vowel (e.g. monosyllabic words like eye []) is nothing but a nucleus. A
syllable may optionally have an onset and/or a coda each consisting of one or more
Cs. A syllable with a coda is said to be closed; one without is open.
1.3.2 The nucleus and the coda (if any) together make up the rhyme (sometimes spelled
rime), an important constituent in its own right. For instance, it is the nature of the
rhyme that determines syllable weight (see §1.10). Rhyme means what it says: what
linguists call the rhyme is the part of the syllable relevant for establishing rhymes in
the verse of English and other languages. The syllable onset is irrelevant, just as
pig doesn’t count as rhyming with pat, even though the onsets are the same. The
nucleus by itself, or the onset plus the nucleus, aren’t what matters either: pig and
bin or pig and pin give you assonance, but they don’t rhyme. Congruence of codas
alone, as in sand, bend, wind yields a verse effect known as ‘chime’, but by the
rules of English versification these aren’t proper rhymes. Proper rhyming requires
the sameness of the nucleus plus the coda (i.e. the rhyme) of the final syllables of
the rhyming lines.
45
1.3.3 You might suppose that the most fundamental kind of syllable is one consisting of a
single V, i.e. of the one obligatory element necessary to have a syllable at all. But
it is not. The most basic syllable structure is CV – i.e. an open syllable with a
single-consonant onset. It’s the most basic in that every language has CV syllables
whether or not it also has other types (and many do not), and CV is universally the
first syllable type acquired by the child.
46
1.4 The nucleus
1.4.1 The nucleus of a syllable is usually a vowel, but may exceptionally be a resonant (=
sonorant C). Consider the word gentleman []. This has three syllables,
but only two vowels. Between the two syllables whose nucleus is a vowel is a third
syllable, consisting of the lateral approximant [l]. A narrow transcription would be
[], with the diacritic indicating that the consonant is syllabic.
1.4.2 The word gentleman is always trisyllabic. Other words with syllabic consonants
may have variant pronunciations where the consonant in question is optionally nonsyllabic, reducing the number of syllables by one. Consider the word traveller.
This may have two syllables ([]), or three, in which case a narrow
transcription would be []. The same applies to a word like rumbling, which
may be either [] or []. The two syllabifications are [.]
and [..]. As against this an apparently similar word like duckling has only
a disyllabic pronunciation: there is no alternative with a syllabic [l]. What accounts
for these variations?
1.4.3 Historically the words travel and gentle once had two vowel-nucleic syllables.
Travel is a variant of travail, and derives from the French word travail []
‘work’. (Travelling was once more arduous than it generally is today.) Originally it
was [], and perhaps even now that could be set up as the most basic
citation-form pronunciation. However, there is a general tendency (i) for
unstressed vowels to be reduced to schwa, giving [], and (ii) for the schwa
itself then to be deleted if followed by a resonant C capable of being syllabic; hence
[]. If you now add a syllable beginning with a vowel, as in traveller, one of
two things can happen. Either (i) the syllabic consonant retains its syllabicity, and
you simply add a third syllable ([..]), or (ii) the syllabic [l] loses its
syllabicity and becomes either the onset of the second syllable ([.]), or, in a
case like rumbling, the second element in an onset cluster ([.]). The same
considerations apply to a word like gentler ‘more gentle’, which has both di- and
trisyllabic pronunciations. But the [l] of gentleman can’t lose its syllabicity
because there is no vowel immediately to its right such that it could become the
onset of a syllable whose nucleus was that vowel. Finally, why isn’t there a
trisyllabic variant of duckling? Because the morphological structure is duck+ling:
the [l] was never anything but the onset of the second syllable (the first segment of
the diminutive suffix –ling). Rumbling is what you do when you rumble, but
duckling is not what you do when you duckle.
1.5 The sonority hierarchy and sonority sequencing
1.5.1 The nucleus is the most sonorous element in the syllable. In acoustic terms, the
sonority of a sound is its loudness relative to that of other sounds of the same length
and pitch (the louder, the more sonorous). Try saying the vowels [,,,,]. You
can probably hear that [] has the greatest sonority (due, largely, to its being
pronounced with the mouth wider open.
1.5.2 We can establish a sonority hierarchy. Low vowels are more sonorous than high
vowels. The approximant [l] has about the same sonority as the high vowel [i].
The nasals [m, n] have slightly less sonority than [i], but greater sonority than a
voiced fricative such as [z]. The voiced stops and all the voiceless sounds have
very little sonority.
47
1.5.3 NB distinguish sonority and sonorous from the classificatory term sonorant.
Sonorants are defined in opposition to obstruents, i.e. they are the resonant
consonants plus the vowels. But notice that there is an important relationship
between the terms – sonorants are more sonorous than obstruents. In general, to a
rough approximation, the standard way of setting out a language’s inventory of
speech sounds, starting with the plosives on the left (or at the top) and ending with
the vowels on the right (or at the bottom), corresponds to the acoustically defined
sonority hierarchy. The most sonorous sounds are vowels, which are voiced,
continuant and sonorant. The least sonorous sounds are those that least resemble
vowels, i.e. voiceless plosives, which are neither voiced nor continuant nor
sonorant. Voiced plosives are (slightly) more sonorous because they are voiced.
Voiceless fricatives are more sonorous because they are continuants. Voiced
fricatives are more sonorous than voiceless ones because they are both voiced and
continuant. Resonant (i.e. non-obstruent) consonants (i.e. nasals, liquids and
glides) are more sonorous still because they are sonorants. In English, resonants
are the only consonants sufficiently vowel-like to be allowed as syllabic nuclei (but
see §1.9.1 below).
1.5.4 Syllables to a greater or lesser degree obey a principle of sonority sequencing. If
you start from the nucleus (the most sonorous element), sounds become
progressively less sonorous as you move out towards either edge of the syllable.
Take e.g. crashed []. [] is a voiceless plosive, and therefore less sonorous
than [], which is an approximant (a liquid). [] is the nucleus. [] is a fricative,
and therefore less sonorous than [], but more sonorous than [], another voiceless
plosive.
1.5.5 Why, when we borrow into English French monosyllables like centre [],
entre [], humble [], mètre [], do we make two syllables out of them:
cen.tre, en.ter, hum.ble, me.ter? Because the French plosive-liquid coda clusters
violate sonority sequencing. This is allowed (in this kind of case) in French, but
not in English. The l or the r is more sonorous than the preceding plosive, and
therefore can’t follow it in the same syllable. So it has to be in a separate second
syllable. (NB although the usual French r-sound [] is a uvular trill, and thus
technically a stop in terms of a phonetic description, phonologically it does not
behave like an obstruent, and is higher up the sonority hierarchy than any stop.
This applies to all r-sounds, whatever they may be phonetically.)
Similarly, French regularly allows the resonant m to stand outside the obstruent s in
the same syllable. Hence the fact e.g. that in French the suffix -isme (as in
communisme, etc., is a single syllable, whereas in English the corresponding form
-ism is two syllables, with a syllabic m as required by sonority sequencing.
1.6 Onsets
1.6.1 Simple (i.e. one-C) onsets in English may consist of any consonant except the velar
nasal []. Why can’t  be a syllable onset in English? Because historically it
was a positional variant of [n] before a velar plosive [k] or [], as in sink [],
anger []. In some contexts it has gone on to absorb a following [], as in bang
[], sing [], which is why it can now appear by itself as a coda. But its
impossibility as an onset is a reflection of the impossibility of [] as an onset.
1.6.2
In accordance with sonority sequencing, complex onsets in English basically
consist of an obstruent (plosive or fricative) followed by a liquid or glide, as in plot,
press, bloom, brick, flag, frock, clock, crack, glad, grill, trap, dress, thrill, slum,
48
shrill, shriek, cute, duke, twin, dwell, queen, thwart, swell… Homorganic or quasihomorganic onsets or not allowed (in most accents). E.g. in SBE there are no
syllables beginning [tl, dl] (both elements alveolar), and no syllables beginning
[pw, bw] (both elements labial) unless you count certain foreign words as
belonging to English: Puerto Rico [pw…], Buenos Aires [bw…]. (Cf. §1.2.5
above.)
1.6.3 The above statement about onsets needs fine-tuning:
(1) The glide [j] as the second element in an onset is peculiar, for three reasons.
First, it can be preceded not only by an obstruent but also by a nasal or a liquid:
mute, newt, lure. Secondly, it is recessive. If the preceding obstruent is alveolar
[s], [z], [t], [d] it is liable to be absorbed into a palatoalveolar fricative (in the case
of [s], [z]) or affricate (in the case of [t], [d]): sugar [] > , tube
 > ; or, in any kind of cluster, it may be dropped altogether: suit
[] > . (This last possibility has been taken a good deal further in some
American accents than in SBE.) Thirdly, it rarely occurs nowadays in any accent
unless the vowel of the syllable is [u] or , as in all the examples given here.
Before other vowels it has mostly disappeared, or is on its way to disappearing:
soldier ] > ]. At one stage in its history the very common
abstract noun suffix –tion had [], now invariably [].
(2) In two-consonant onsets [s], unlike other obstruents, can appear before a nasal
(smug, snow), and violates sonority sequencing by appearing very frequently
outside voiceless plosives (spot, stain, scab. . .). See further remarks on [s] in §1.9
below.
1.6.4 Some languages allow what to English ears are highly exotic onsets. For instance,
certain African languages which have nasal-plosive combinations syllable-initially,
as in names such as Mbeki, Ntini, Nkomo. In pronouncing such words, English
speakers tend to adapt these (for them) ‘impossible’ onsets to make them fit in with
English phonotactics, by inserting an epenthetic vowel either before or after the
nasal, or by making the nasal itself syllabic: [] or [] or [], etc.
This has the desired effect by changing the syllable structure in such a way that the
nasal and the plosive are no longer tautosyllabic: [..], [..], [..].
1.7 Codas
1.7.1 Codas in English are more complicated than onsets. What consonants can form a
simple coda? Any, except , [] (in non-rhotic accents) and, arguably, the
glides j and [w]. The non-occurrence of [h] in codas fits in with analysing it as a
voiceless precursor to a stressed vowel. The reason there is room for argument
about [j] and [w] is that it depends how you treat diphthongs ending in high vowels,
i.e. ending in ] (or ]), [] (or []). How exactly do you pronounce words like
high, how? It’s quite likely that you have at least a detectable offglide at the end:
[h], ]. Some phonologists would routinely transcribe these as [h],
]; according to such an analysis there are syllables that end in glides.
1.7.2 The velar nasal is again peculiar: in citation forms it cannot close a syllable if the
preceding vowel is long. So we have wing, sang, bong alongside wind, sand, bond,
but no *woung, *fieng *hing [ alongside wound, fiend, hind. Note the need
to specify that *hing is to be read here as [, not [], whereas we have no
difficulty in interpreting hind as [nd]. This shows that a V rhyme is quite
foreign to English syllable structure.
49
The only exceptions are a few quasi-words such as boing []. (But in
connected speech a velar nasal can close a syllable with a long vowel if it occurs
through place assimilation: ] clean cup.)
This restriction on the velar nasal again illustrates its historical derivation from []
or [n]. Analysed in that way, it can be seen as a particular case of a more general
constraint on codas: a long vowel can only precede a coda cluster if all the
consonants are coronal (pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue). So toast
is a possible English word, while *toask and *toasp are not.
1.7.3 The consonant sequences at the end of width , depth violate sonority
sequencing, as do those in act, apt, albeit in a more minor way (in these latter cases
there is no difference in sonority). In fact, coronal (which means, essentially,
dental, alveolar and palatoalveolar) obstruents appear to occur unrestrictedly at the
right edge of an English word. Sixths and texts apparently have four-consonant
codas, in the latter of which a fricative stands outside a plosive twice over (i.e. in
second and fourth position). Strict sonority sequencing evidently doesn’t apply to
codas across the board.
1.7.4 One reason for this has to do with grammar: English morphology makes extensive
use of inflection by suffixation, and the preferred suffixes tend to be coronal
obstruents. An added final [z] (or its phonotactically induced variants [s] and [z])
forms plural nouns (dogs), genitive nouns (the dog’s bone) and 3sg present verbs
(he dogs my footsteps); [d] or its corresponding variants [t] and [d] gives the past
tense of weak ( = regular) verbs; [] forms ordinal numerals from cardinals (eight ~
eighth), etc. These morphological requirements override preferred syllable
structure if necessary. So if e.g. you make a noun out of the ordinal or fractional
numeral corresponding to six, and then pluralise it, you end up with the
morphological structure six+th+s. This gives a virtually unpronounceable syllable
coda,23 but the grammar doesn’t seem to care about that. Cf. the way that
morphological suffixation overrides the rule that a nasal-obstruent cluster be
homorganic. So tamp [mp], tent [nt], tank [k], but never *tanp, *tamk, etc. But
this restriction doesn’t apply if the obstruent is a morphological marker (i.e. a
separate morpheme): ring+s [], ring+ed [] (both velar nasal followed by
alveolar obstruent).
1.8 Syllable boundaries
1.8.1 When a consonant might be either the coda of one syllable or the onset of the next,
how do you tell which it is? If you have a sequence of two or more consonants,
how do you tell which belong to the coda of one syllable and which belong to the
onset of the next?
There is not necessarily a definitive formula that holds for each and every case;
syllable boundaries can vary from speaker to speaker, can depend on speed and
style of speech, and can sometimes be permanently restructured over time. There is
a complex interplay between phonetic facts about pronunciation that show what the
syllable structure is, and grammatical facts that have an influence on pronunciation,
and hence on syllable structure. In so far as the syllable is a unit we are
consciously aware of, there is a simple empirical test you can try: take a phrase or
polysyllabic word, pronounce it slowly and carefully, syllable by syllable, and see
In fact sixth and sixths are very often reduced to [ and [. This makes the coda of sixths merely
triconsonantal.
23
50
where you naturally put the boundaries. This may resolve some doubtful cases. At
any rate, some general principles can be established.
1.8.2 The most general principle is that, other things being equal, CV is preferred to
CVC, VC or V (§1.3.3). So so.li.da.ri.ty, not *sol.id.ar.it.y. In a case like this, the
 gives an important clue: we have already said (§1.2.2) that we can best state
the distribution of  in non-rhotic English in terms of its non-occurrence in
codas. So that would argue for an analysis that treats  as an onset. And the
non-occurrence of  in codas is in itself evidence that CV is preferred to VC.
(The argument may sound circular, but what we are dealing with here is a set of
structural principles that fit together holistically.)
1.8.3 When are other things not equal? When there is grammatical structure to be
considered. The syllable in English tends to be subordinate to grammatical units.
So, on the whole, English does not syllabify across word boundaries. (Contrast
what happens in French, as illustrated in §1.2.6 ff.). Take the phrase not a word
and pronounce it syllable by syllable. The chances are that your syllabification will
be not.a.word, with the [t] of not as a coda rather than an onset. (The French for
not a word is pas un mot , but here the syllable structure is clearly
.., with the final consonant of pas the onset to un.) However, there are
exceptions. The phrase at all is often pronounced , i.e. exactly as if it
were a tall: the aspiration of the [t] shows that it is the onset of the stressed syllable.
Historically, some words with initial [n] have been reanalysed with the [n] as
belonging to the indefinite article. Adder, apron, umpire were once nadder (cf.
Latin natrix), napron (cf. French naperon), noumpere (cf. Old French nomper): a
nadder was reinterpreted as an adder, which can only have happened on the basis
that the [n] could be either onset or coda. However, we would probably now put
the first syllable boundary in an adder after the [n] rather than before it, in
accordance with the (new) word structure. In English, grammatical structure tends
to dominate syllable structure below the word level too: in so far as adder is treated
as a single morpheme we are likely to syllabify it as a.dder, in accordance with the
general preference for CV over VC; whereas if we interpreted it as add+er
‘someone or something that adds’, we might go for add.er. But we are now in a
grey area: in cases like this the question is whether we can reliably distinguish our
intuitions about syllables from our grasp of morphology.
In cases like adder, where there may be real doubt as to whether a C is the coda of
one syllable or the onset of the next, some phonologists would treat it as
simultaneously both. But it is doubtful whether this is more than just a formal way
of expressing the fact that the syllabification is equivocal or undecidable.
1.8.4 In contexts where in principle obstruent-resonant sequences might be split between
the coda of one syllable and the onset of the next, they are usually tautosyllabic –
i.e. they form a complex onset to the second syllable that accords with sonority
sequencing. So re.cline, ac.tress, poul.try, en.twine, not *rec.line, *act.ress,
*poult.ry, *ent.wine). The main evidence for this is that voiceless plosives in
these clusters (i) project devoicing or spirantisation on to a following approximant,
just as they do when unequivocally syllable-initial, and (ii) don’t undergo glottaling
(but see remarks about petrol in §1.2.3 above – if you say [] that is good
evidence that, for you, the syllabification is indeed poult.ry. Treating [t] as
belonging to the coda in circumstances where it might equally well count as the
onset or part of the onset of the next syllable, provided that syllable doesn’t take
primary stress, is quite frequent in some accents. Note what happens to the second
[t], but not the first, in []).
51
1.8.5 Aspiration of a voiceless plosive (or devoicing/spirantisation of a following
approximant) is often a good guide to where the syllable boundary falls when you
have the sequence [s] followed by another obstruent. Remember that a voiceless
plosive is aspirated primarily when syllable-initial, and that a preceding
tautosyllabic [s] suppresses aspiration. Compare mistime and mistake. These are
usually pronounced  and  respectively – i.e. the former with
aspiration of the [t], the latter without. This implies the syllabifications mis.time as
opposed to mi.stake. Historically both words had the same morphological
structure: mis+time and mis+take. But the syllabification mi.stake suggests that,
unlike mistime, mistake has become morphologically opaque: i.e. speakers have
lost sight of the notion that to mistake something is to mis-take it.
1.9 The international rogue segment in syllable structure
1.9.1 [s] is especially problematic in syllable structure. As far as English is concerned,
[s] can in fact appear pretty much anywhere in a syllable, not even excluding the
nucleus. You may be dubious about counting psssst! as an English word, but some
people may pronounce a word such as spa as two syllables, with two definite peaks
of sonority, one on the s, the other on the vowel, and with aspiration of the [p] as
heavy as in pa, i.e. as expected when a voiceless plosive is syllable-initial:
[.]. [s] can also form what appear to be triconsonantal onsets (stew, straight)
and very complex codas (as in sixths, texts, mentioned above). All this without
reference to sonority sequencing.
Some phonologists treat [s], and not just in
English, as a rogue segment that stands outside the structure of the syllable.
1.9.2 A number of Indo-European languages have vacillated between allowing and not
allowing [s] to violate syllable structure rules. So e.g. Classical Latin allowed [s] to
appear at the beginnings of syllable onsets, in violation of sonority sequencing, in
words like sc(h)ola ‘school’. Spoken Latin (‘Vulgar’ Latin) and the early Romance
languages couldn’t be doing with this, and required an epenthetic vowel that put the
[s] and the following C in different syllables. So in Old Italian ‘school’ is iscuola.
But Modern Italian has reverted to allowing [s] in the same syllable as a following
obstruent: scuola. In Old French, the [s] also required epenthesis, as in escole, but
later the [s] itself dropped out. So there are many etymologically related words in
English and Modern French where French has a vowel [e] corresponding
(apparently) to an English [s]: école ~ school, état ~ state, étrange ~ strange etc.
Welsh has similarly chopped and changed in its treatment of [s]C: early loans like
ystafell ‘room’, from Latin stabulum ‘stable’, show epenthesis, but modern loans do
not, e.g. sbort ‘sport’, not *ysbort (y here = []).
1.10 Syllable weight
1.10.1 Syllable weight is an important concept in languages which have a length
distinction among vowels, especially in relation to stress assignment (see below).
A light syllable has a nucleus consisting of a lexically short vowel, and no coda. A
heavy syllable has a lexically long vowel, or a coda, or both. Note that onsets have
nothing to do with syllable weight; it is entirely a matter of rhyme-structure.
1.10.2 As far as English is concerned, two refinements to the statement in §1.10.1 are
required: (1) A syllabic consonant, deriving historically or stylistically from the
deletion of a schwa, is equivalent to a short vowel. (2) For purposes of assigning
stress, in a polysyllabic word (three or more syllables) a single word-final
consonant will not make that syllable heavy, provided the vowel is short.
52
1.10.3 Some illustrations:
sy.lla.ble 3 syllables, LLL
weight 1 syllable, H
im.por.tant 3 syllables, HHH
con.cept 2 syllables, HH
lang.uag.es 3 syllables, HHL
a 1 syllable, (see below)
length 1 syllable, H
dis.tinc.tion 3 syllables, HHL
a.mong 2 syllables, LH
vo(.)wels 1 syllable, H -- or 2 syllables, HH
re.la.tion 3 syllables, LHL
a.ssign.ment 3 syllables, LHH
hea.vy 2 syllables, LH
no.thing 2 syllables, LH
ma.tter 2 syllables, LL
The word important in this list shows how the historical loss of coda-r in non-rhotic
accents has not (usually) changed the weight of the syllables in which it once
occurred: except word-finally the vowel has undergone compensatory lengthening.
Note that the final syllables of important and assignment are heavy, because they
have CC codas, but the final syllables of the trisyllabic words languages,
distinction, relation are light, even though they are closed, because they have short
vowels and a single C coda.
1.10.4 An English monosyllable is always heavy. This means that in open monosyllables
the vowel will always be lexically long, as in how, me, sea, you. The only apparent
exceptions are the articles a and the, where the vowel is schwa. But note that in
both cases the schwa derives by reduction from a lexically long vowel. Given the
general rule about monosyllabic words, it makes sense to treat the articles as
usually pronounced as having undergone proclisis: i.e. in a book, the book they are
not phonologically full words, but have become attached (as clitics) to the
following word, forming an initial unstressed syllable: [], [].
1.10.5 The reality of syllable weight: heavy syllables of different phonological structure
constitute a class and often act as a class (i.e. as if they were equivalent). Study
these forms from various Old English noun declensions:24
(a) neuter a-stem, nom. pl.
A
B
+ ‘vessels’
v+ ‘dwellings’
24
 ‘funeral pyres’
 ‘women’
R. Lass, Phonology: An Introduction to Basic Concepts, Cambridge U.P., 1984, pp. 250 ff.
53
+ ‘coals’
+ ‘limbs’
 ‘words’
 ‘lands’
(b) neuter a-stem disyllables, nom. sg. vs gen. sg.
A
B
 / + ‘water’
 / + ‘game’
 / + ‘poison’
 / + ‘star’
(c) feminine o-stem, nom. sg.
A
+
+
+
+
B

‘honour’
 ‘bier’
 ‘linden’
 ‘shovel’
‘disease’
‘valley’
‘tale’
‘journey’
(d) masculine i-stem. nom. sg.
A
+
+
+
+
B
‘gleam’
 ‘seagull’
 ‘loss’

‘giant’
‘friend’
‘weight’
‘(rose) hip’
‘pool’
(e) masculine u-stem, nom. sg.
A
+
+
+
+
B




‘son’
‘prince’
‘sea’
‘custom’
54
‘spear’
‘rank’
‘field’
‘ford’
Look first at the alternation of suffixed ‘A’ and unsuffixed ‘B’ forms in (a), (c), (d),
(e). There is a phonological generalisation here. There is a suffix if the stem ends
in –VC; there is no suffix if the stem ends in –VCC or VC. As for the (b) forms,
if the first syllable of a disyllabic sonorant-final noun ends in –VC, then the next
vowel does not undergo syncope in the genitive singular; if the first syllable ends in
–VCC or -VC, there is syncope.
These two processes are clearly related: VCC and VC somehow go together and
act as if they were equivalent. They are both rhymes that make their syllable
heavy. If the stem ends in VC, the addition of the vocalic suffix allows the C to be
the onset of a second syllable, giving two light CV syllables. But the addition of
the suffix to VCC or VC would leave a heavy first syllable.
2 Stress
2.1 Introduction
2.1.1 Stress is the phenomenon whereby certain syllables (or the nuclei of certain
syllables) are more prominent than others. Stress in itself is an abstract notion,
which may be realised in different ways in different languages: prominence may
take the form of greater loudness, more length, higher pitch, etc., or some
combination of these. Stress has to do with the rhythmic qualities of speech; its
study comes under the heading of metrical phonology, where metrical ( < metre)
means what it does in poetry.
Note: in discussing stress we do not usually need to consider fine phonetic detail, so
from here on I shall mostly cite examples in ordinary spelling, with syllableboundaries marked as usual with a full stop (as already in §1.10.3), and the nucleus
of the main-stressed syllable in upper-case .
2.2 Stress-timing vs syllable-timing
2.2.1 There are important differences between languages as to the characteristic rhythm
with which they are spoken. We can distinguish stress-timed languages from
syllable-timed languages.
2.2.2 The Romance languages, e.g. French, Spanish, are syllable-timed. In a syllabletimed language there is a tendency for each syllable to occupy the same amount of
time. A concomitant feature of rhythm in a syllable-timed language is that, on the
whole, syllables tend to be equally stressed. In fact, in a syllable-timed language
the last syllable of the phonological phrase will tend to be stressed and lengthened,
but there is nothing that corresponds to the complex shifting of stress from syllable
to syllable and concomitant changes in vowel quality that we find in
morphologically related words in a stress-timed language like English. E.g. phO.to
[], phO.to.graph […], pho.tO.gra.phy […]. It is a feature of
syllable-timed languages that they tend to attach little significance to the word as a
phonological unit. This can be seen from the French data in §1.2.7, where one of
the processes involved amounts to maintaining preferred syllable structure at the
expense of changing the phonological form of the individual word: a coda
consonant will be lost unless there is a gap for it to become the onset of the
55
following syllable.25 This is what happens in non-rhotic English with respect to
one particular segment (r); English would sound very different if it regularly
happened across the board. (See §1.8.3 above.)
2.2.3 English is stress-timed. Its rhythm has to be understood with reference to a timing
unit called the foot. In ordinarily rhythmic English speech, feet succeed each other
at equal intervals of time. Each foot contains one stressed syllable, plus an
indefinite number of unstressed syllables. It is easy to see from this that timing in
English has nothing to do with the number of syllables. Consider phO.to,
phO.to.graph, pho.tO.gra.phy again. These words have two, three and four
syllables respectively, but each has two feet. Try chanting these three words to
yourself over and over again. You naturally fall into a rhythm whereby each takes
up about the same amount of time. The length of individual syllables expands and
contracts to fit. Stress in English is primarily a matter of length: stressed vowels
tend to be longer than unstressed ones. (But note that this does not mean that only
lexically long vowels can be stressed.) Consider, in particular, what happens to the
second o of phO.to.graph and the first o of pho.tO.gra.phy. They have no stress,
and very little time in which to be pronounced. It takes time to get the tongue into
peripheral positions in the vowel space. Hence the tendency for short, unstressed
vowels to be reduced. In both these cases, in anything like normal speech the
vowel will be schwa.
2.2.4 For English we can draw a distinction between main (or primary) stress, secondary
stress, and complete lack of stress. The word phO.to has main stress on the first
syllable and secondary stress on the second. phO.to.graph has main stress on the
first syllable, no stress on the second, and secondary stress on the third.
pho.tO.gra.phy has no stress on the first and third syllables, main stress on the
second and secondary stress on the last. The vowels of unstressed syllables are
reduced to schwa. Secondarily stressed syllables have less stress than the mainstressed syllable, but unreduced vowels. (Note: the test of whether a syllable is
unstressed or secondarily stressed is not whether it actually has a reduced vowel in
someone’s pronunciation on a particular occasion, but whether the vowel is capable
of reduction, given an appropriate style and speed of utterance. The word
photography, spoken slowly and clearly, may have all its vowels unreduced. But
the first and third may be reduced, and hence are unstressed. As against that, the
fourth can’t be reduced to schwa in any style of speech, and hence counts as
secondarily stressed.)
2.2.5 The foot in linguistic metrics is somewhat analogous to the bar in music. Each bar
takes the same amount of time to produce, even though different bars may contain
different numbers of notes, and each bar is characterised by one main stressed note.
2.3 Word stress in English: an introduction
2.3.1 The rules for assigning stress to English words, considered in isolation, are
complicated and full of exceptions. Also, there are many words which different
speakers stress differently (watch out for examples in the discussion below). But
one general point is that stress tends to be sensitive to grammar. So let us draw out
in some detail just one broad pattern concerning words of two grammatical
categories: nouns and verbs.
The final outcome is complicated by what then happens to schwa, which is lost wherever the result is a
possible syllable, whether open or closed.
25
56
Start with these:
cOn.flict
In.crease
Im.plant
Up.set
prO.test
sUr.vey
Es.cort
dI.gest
fEr.ment
cOn.tract
con.flIct
in.crEAse
im.plAnt
up.sEt
pro.tEst
sur.vEy
es.cOrt
di.gEst
fer.mEnt
con.trAct
These are a small sample of a large class of English disyllables where stress shifts
according to whether the word is a noun (on the left) or a verb (on the right).
Let us take the point from these pairs that stress is nearer the end of the word if it is
a verb, and nearer the beginning if it is a noun, and see how far we can generalise
from it.
2.3.2 Some trisyllabic nouns:
sU.btle.ty
sO.li.tude
bI.cy.cle
O.ra.cle
rE.gi.cide
pA.ra.dox
hIs.to.ry
trAm.po.line
sU.rro.gate
sA.ccha.rine
2.3.3 Compare these with some trisyllabic verbs:
de.vE.lop
i.mA.gine
a.stO.nish
de.lI.ver
ad.mO.nish
de.tEr.mine
im.pE.ril
These sets fit in. In these trisyllabic words stress is nearer the beginning (on the
first syllable) in nouns, nearer the end (on the second syllable) in verbs.
2.3.4 What happens if we have more than three syllables? First, nouns:
a.cA.de.my
57
as.pA.ra.gus
ki.lOme.tre
cen.tEn.a.ry
me.ta.mOr.pho.sis
hi.ppo.pO.ta.mus
pa.ra.llE.lo.gram
mag.na.nI.mi.ty
a.lu.mI.nium
(There are a couple of very common variant pronunciations here: kI.lo.me.tre
instead of ki.lOme.tre and me.ta.mor.phO.sis instead of me.ta.mOr.pho.sis.
These will be discussed at §2.8.2 and §2.5.8 respectively.)
2.3.5 For verbs, let’s take the trisyllables already listed in §2.3.3 and add the prefix re-:
re.de.vE.lop
re.i.mA.gine
re.a.stO.nish
re.de.lI.ver
re.ad.mO.nish
re.de.tEr.mine
re.im.pE.ril
The general principle of stress later in the word for verbs still holds. The nouns
have either four or five syllables; in each case stress falls on the third from the end.
The verbs have four syllables; in each case stress falls on the second from the end.
2.3.6 However… Compare the following trisyllabic nouns with those in §2.3.2:
a.gEn.da
a.mAl.gam
as.bEs.tos
in.cI.sor
re.trIE.ver
sur.vI.val
oc.tO.ber
an.tArc.tic
These have stress on the penult, just as if they were verbs.
phonologically in some systematic way from the nouns in §2.3.4?
Do they differ
Yes, they do. Where nouns are concerned the crucial factor is the weight of the
penultimate (last but one) syllable. In a noun of three or more syllables, if the
penult is light, the antepenult (last but two) will receive stress. If the penult is
heavy, it will attract stress to itself.
Check against the definitions given in §1.10.1, §1.10.2 that in all the nouns of
§2.3.2 the last but one syllable is light, and that in all the nouns of §2.3.6 the last
but one syllable is heavy.
58
2.3.7 Where verbs are concerned the crucial factor is the weight of the ultimate (last)
syllable. The verbs in §2.3.3 and §2.3.5 have light final syllables. (Remember that
when it comes to assigning stress a single final consonant at the end of a
polysyllabic word doesn’t make that syllable heavy, provided the vowel is lexically
short.) When the final syllable of a verb is light, stress is on the penult. However,
if the final syllable of a verb is heavy, that syllable will attract stress to itself:
re.co.mmEnd
di.sa.bUse
su.per.sEde
re.con.vEne
re.in.vEnt
o.ver.whElm
2.3.8 There is an important class of exceptions to the rule stated in §2.3.7: there are
certain productive verb-forming suffixes in English which, although consisting of a
heavy syllable, do not take the main stress if the verb that they form has three
syllables or more. The chief ones are -ate, -ise and -ify:
con.flAte
re.lAte
cO.llo.cate
e.vA.po.rate
e.mA.ci.ate
cOm.pli.cate
dE.mon.strate
rE.a.lise
I.te.mise
sA.ni.tise
rEcog.nise
prI.va.tise
vI.vi.fy
sIm.pli.fy
mAg.ni.fy
tE.rri.fy
hO.rri.fy
Conflate and relate have final stress because they are disyllabic; the others fall
outside the normal stress pattern for verbs. We shall return to these forms later.
(§2.5.11). But from here on reference to ‘verbs’ excludes derived forms with these
suffixes.
2.3.9
Return to the initial data of §2.3.1, repeated here for convenience. In nouns what
matters is whether the penult is heavy. In these words it is, so it receives the stress.
In verbs what matters is whether the final syllable is heavy. In these words it is, so
it receives the stress.
cOn.flict
In.crease
Im.plant
Up.set
prO.test
sUr.vey
Es.cort
dI.gest
fEr.ment
cOn.tract
con.flIct
in.crEAse
im.plAnt
up.sEt
pro.tEst
sur.vEy
es.cOrt
di.gEst
fer.mEnt
con.trAct
2.4 The foot
59
2.4.1 So far, we have been talking simply about placing ‘the stress’ in a given word,
meaning the main stress, as if stress were simply a binary matter of stressed or not
stressed. We have been ignoring the issue of primary vs secondary stress, and the
difference between secondarily stressed and unstressed syllables. Consider the
words metamorphosis (with the pronunciation as given in the list of examples, i.e.
stress on the third syllable) and parallelogram, cited at §2.3.4. In both these
pentasyllabic words the second and fourth syllables are unstressed and may have
their vowel reduced to schwa. But the vowel of the first syllable can’t be reduced:
it takes secondary stress. How do we analyse this situation?
2.4.2
At this point we need to reintroduce the concept of the foot (look back at §2.2.3).
The foot is a timing unit containing one stressed syllable. Linguistic feet have
heads: the stressed syllable is the head of its foot.
2.4.3 In English poetry the most basic and characteristic foot structure consists of two
syllables, unstressed (or secondarily stressed)26 followed by (main-)stressed. In
literary metrics this foot is called a iamb(us). Five of them together form the
classic line of English verse, the iambic pentameter:
put OUt | the lIght, | and thEn | put OUt | the lIght
(Shakespeare)
the cUr | few tOlls | the knEll | of pArt | ing dAy
(Gray)
i dEAl | with fAr | mers, thIngs | like dIps | and fEEds
(Larkin)
But poetry is about combining words, and in fact the iambic foot of verse runs
counter to the basic metrical structure of individual words, which is trochaic, i.e.
stressed followed by unstressed, giving a left-headed foot. You can hear this
trochaic rhythm in the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious: if it were a line of
verse it would be a trochaic heptameter.
So there is a conflict between the characteristic rhythm of words and of lines of
verse. You can see this conflict at work in the examples: all three words of more
than one syllable (curfew, parting, farmers) have stress on the first syllable, which
means, given the iambic rhythm of the lines, that the words concerned divide across
foot-boundaries. That there should be this conflict is actually important for verse.
2.4.4 As far as the metrical structure of individual words is concerned, let us start with
verbs. Here again are the verbs of §2.3.3:
de.vE.lop
i.mA.gine
a.stO.nish
Note that on the face of it this conflicts with the definition of the foot as a unit whose head is a stressed
syllable, whether primarily or secondarily stressed. We can either say that in poetic metrics the term ‘foot’ is used
slightly differently, in that only a main-stressed syllable can be the head of a foot, or, alternatively, that the
distinction between secondarily stressed and unstressed is inoperative for purposes of establishing the
fundamental rhythm of a line of verse, and hence ignored in the traditional analysis of metre in poetry.
26
60
de.lI.ver
ad.mO.nish
de.tEr.mine
im.pE.ril
These are trisyllabic, with stress on the middle syllable. They can be analysed as
having a left-headed foot built at the right edge of the word, preceded by an
unstressed syllable:
de | vE.lop
i | mA.gine
a | stO.nish
de | lI.ver
ad | mO.nish
de | tEr.mine
im | pE.ril
(The initial unstressed syllable here might be seen as analogous to starting a piece
of music on the last beat of the bar).
2.4.5 But why is this a left-headed foot built at the right edge of the word, preceded by an
unstressed syllable, as opposed to a right-headed foot built at the left edge of the
word, followed by an unstressed syllable? Why, in fact, this talk of feet at all?
Well, consider what happens if we add the prefix re-, as in the examples first given
at §2.3.5:
re.de.vE.lop
re.i.mA.gine
re.a.stO.nish
re.de.lI.ver
re.ad.mO.nish
re.de.tEr.mine
re.im.pE.ril
Compare the pronunciation of re- here with re- in refine, restore, retrieve. In these
latter words the vowel is (or may be) schwa (or ]). But not in redevelop, etc.
Here the vowel of re- can’t be reduced: the pronunciation is ]. These words
contain two left-headed feet, the head in each case being stressed, with primary
stress on the head of the foot on the right, and secondary stress (marked here with
the standard IPA symbol) on the head of the other:
re.de | vE.lop
re.i | mA.gine
re.a | stO.nish
re.de | lI.ver
re.ad | mO.nish
re.de | tEr.mine
re.im | pE.ril
61
An analysis in terms of right-headed feet wouldn’t work. And an analysis that built
left-headed feet from left to right wouldn’t work for the unprefixed verbs of §2.4.4.
2.4.6 The basic rule for assigning foot structure to English words (and the only rule that
accommodates the verbs of both §2.4.4 and §2.4.5) is: build left-headed feet
iteratively from right to left through the word, and assign main stress to the head of
the rightmost. That is in effect what we have done to get the correct metrical
analysis of the verbs considered so far.
2.4.7 But … this doesn’t seem to work for the verbs in §2.3.7, repeated here:
re.co.mmEnd
di.sa.bUse
su.per.sEde
re.con.vEne
re.in.vEnt
o.ver.whElm
According to the rule, these ought to be like the verbs of §2.4.4, with stress on the
middle syllable. Why aren’t they? As we saw earlier, the crucial difference
between these and the verbs of §2.4.4 is that their final syllable is heavy, and a
heavy final syllable attracts main stress in verbs. And this rule has priority over the
general rule for foot-building. That is to say, a heavy final syllable in a verb has to
be the head of its foot. And because feet in English words are left-headed, the foot
of which this syllable is the head will necessarily be incomplete (cf. an incomplete
bar at the end of a piece of music). Having established this, you then apply the
rule, working back through the word building left-headed feet:
re.co | mmEnd
di.sa | bUse
su.per | sEde
re.con | vEne
re.in | vEnt
o.ver | whElm
2.5 Extrametricality in nouns
2.5.1 So far we have said nothing about the foot structure of nouns. Recall that the
crucial point about nouns seemed to be that main stress tends to occur on an earlier
syllable in the word than in verbs. Can this difference be accommodated in a
unitary account of foot structure that works for both nouns and verbs?
Yes, it can. To start with, we can be more precise about the difference between
nouns and verbs: in every class of case the crucial factor occurs precisely one
syllable earlier in nouns than in verbs. In a disyllabic noun which has a
corresponding disyllabic verb (§2.3.1) the stress falls on the first syllable in the
noun, on the second in the verb. In a noun of three or more syllables, if the penult is
light, the antepenult will be stressed (§2.3.2), whereas in a verb of three or more
syllables, if the final syllable is light, the penult will be stressed (§2.3.3, §2.4.4,
§2.4.5). In a noun, a heavy penult will attract stress to itself (§2.3.6), whereas in a
verb a heavy final syllable will attract stress to itself (§2.3.7, §2.4.7).
62
2.5.2 In nouns, it seems, the final syllable doesn’t count. That is to say, we can arrive at
an analysis that deals with nouns and verbs under the same set of rules if we treat
the final syllable of a noun as extrametrical, i.e. as lying outside the metrical
structure of the word. Let us look again at each of the sets of nouns we have
considered, and see if, making use of the idea of extrametricality, we can apply to
them the foot-building rules developed for verbs. (The extrametrical syllable is
shown in parentheses.)
2.5.3 (cf.§2.3.1, §2.3.9)
cOn(flict)
In(crease)
Im(plant)
Up(set)
prO(test)
sUr(vey)
Es(cort)
dI(gest)
fEr(ment)
cOn(tract)
As far as stress assignment is concerned, extrametricality in effect reduces
disyllables to monosyllables. Which makes it hardly surprising that stress should
fall on the one remaining syllable that counts.
2.5.4 (cf. §2.3.2):
sU.btle(ty)
sO.li(tude)
bI.cy(cle)
O.ra(cle)
rE.gi(cide)
pA.ra(dox)
hIs.to(ry)
trAm.po(line)
sU.rro(gate)
sA.ccha(rine)
Ignoring the last, parenthesised syllable, apply the rules as given in §2.4.6, §2.4.7
for verbs. Is the final syllable (of those remaining to be considered) heavy? No.
Then iteratively build left-headed feet starting as far to the right as possible,
carrying on till you reach the left edge of the word. The head of the rightmost foot
will carry main stress, the head of any foot to the left of the rightmost will carry
secondary stress. In the case of these trisyllabic nouns there is only one foot.
2.5.5 (cf. §2.3.4):
a.cA.de(my)
as.pA.ra(gus)
ki.lO.me(tre)
cen.tE.na(ry)
63
Ignoring the last, parenthesised syllable, apply the rules. Is the final syllable (of
those remaining to be considered) heavy? No. Then iteratively build left-headed
feet starting as far to the right as possible, carrying on till you reach the left edge of
the word. The head of the rightmost foot will carry main stress, the head of any
foot to the left of the rightmost will carry secondary stress. In the case of these
tetrasyllabic nouns there is only one complete foot, preceded by an unstressed
vowel, reduced or reducible to schwa.
2.5.6 (cf. §2.3.4):
me.ta.mOr.pho(sis)
hi.ppo.pO.ta(mus)
pa.ra.llE.lo(gram)
mag.na.nI.mi(ty)
a.lu.mI.ni(um)
Ignoring the last, parenthesised syllable, apply the rules. Is the final syllable (of
those remaining to be considered) heavy? No. Then iteratively build left-headed
feet starting as far to the right as possible, carrying on till you reach the left edge of
the word. The head of the rightmost foot will carry main stress, the head of any
foot to the left of the rightmost will carry secondary stress. In the case of these
pentasyllabic words there are two complete feet, the head of the leftmost carrying
secondary stress, with a vowel unreducible to schwa.
2.5.7 Note that the word aluminium, although usually pronounced as four syllables, with
the third as given in §2.5.6 consonantalised to a glide ([j]), counts as having five for
purposes of stress assignment. The glide-formation here is a late and superficial
process, the metrical structure being determined by an underlying pentasyllabic
citation-form. Contrast the American form aluminum, which only ever has four
syllables, and is stressed according to the pattern of academy, etc., with the first
vowel reduced.
2.5.8 We are now in a position to say something about the alternation between
me.ta.mOr.pho.sis and
me.ta.mor.phO.sis, mentioned at §2.3.4.
Both
pronunciations accord with the rules. In me.ta.mOr.pho.sis the penult is light, so
stress falls on the antepenult. In me.ta.mor.phO.sis the penult is heavy, so stress
falls on that syllable. The stress shift goes hand in hand with the appropriate
adjustment in vowel length (and quality). You might raise a chicken-and-egg
question here: is it the vowel length that determines stress assignment, or the stress
assignment that determines vowel length? Perhaps there is no good answer to that
question. Perhaps we just have to say that the required vowel length goes together
with the required stress placement.
2.5.9 (cf. §2.3.6):
a.gEn(da)
a.mAl(gam)
as.bEs(tos)
in.cI(sor)
re.trIE(ver)
sur.vI(val)
oc.tO(ber)
an.tArc(tic)
64
Ignoring the last, parenthesised syllable, apply the rules. Is the final syllable (of
those remaining to be considered) heavy? Yes. Then apply main stress to it as the
head of a left-headed foot. This leaves a preceding unstressed syllable.
2.5.10 Stress assignment to nouns is subject to the same rules and principles as to verbs.
The difference is that in nouns the final syllable is extrametrical.
2.5.11 We can now reconsider the exceptional suffixed verbs mentioned at §2.3.8. What
is exceptional about them is that they have the stress pattern of nouns. I.e. the final
syllable (the suffix) is extrametrical. (Check that these verbs do in fact obey the
rules as set out for nouns.) This may have something to do with the fact that the
suffixes in question are fully productive and extremely common, and it would be
pragmatically odd to stress the part of the word that carries least information.
2.6 Extrametricality: one complication
2.6.1 In my accent at least, extrametricality appears not to apply in nouns like the
following, which are stressed on the final syllable:
an.tIque
chim.pan.zEE
co.cka.tOO
en.gin.EEr
smi.the.rEEns
bri.ga.dIEr
kan.ga.rOO
ma.ca.rOOn
mar.ga.rIne
ma.ga.zIne
mi.lli.o.nAIre
re.fe.rEE
(This seems to be the inverse of the situation with suffixed verbs, which behave
stresswise as if they were nouns: these are nouns that think they are verbs.)
2.6.2 Is there a generalisation to be made here? Well, in each case the final syllable,
whether open or closed, has a long vowel. So can we insert an additional clause
into the rules for stress assignment to the effect that extrametricality is blocked if
the final syllable of a noun has a long vowel? It doesn’t look like it. First, the
following nouns from the data already considered have long final vowels, but
undergo extrametricality just the same:
In(crease)
Im(plant)
sUr(vey)
Es(cort)
sO.li(tude)
rE.gi(cide)
a.cA.de(my)
65
trAm.po(line)
(Note that in absolute terms the extrametrical ‘long’ vowel here is not necessarily
very long. That accords with the fact that unstressed vowels tend to be shorter than
stressed vowels, irrespective of the lexical length of the vowel concerned. But
these vowels are nonetheless lexically long.)
2.6.3 Secondly, there seems to be a general rule that if the long vowel in the final syllable
is [], extrametricality applies as usual, and stress falls on the penult or
antepenult, according to the usual principles:
bU.ffa.lo
mos.quI.to
to.mA.to
wIn.dow
po.tA.to
mEA.dow
cA.li.co
co.mmAn.do
(As far as these []-final words are concerned, there is a tendency in at least
some of them to reduce the final vowel to schwa (pronunciations like [],
etc. – see §1.2.3, §1.6.4), in which case the final vowel would be short anyway.
But in my accent at least these schwa-final pronunciations cannot be treated as the
citation forms.)
2.6.4 In this context it is interesting to consider the word research. In my speech this has
final stress whether it is a noun or a verb. Others make the usual §2.3.1 distinction
between disyllabic nouns and verbs: rE.search (noun) and re.sEArch (verb). For
such speakers the second syllable of the noun is extrametrical in the normal way.
For me the noun does not undergo extrametricality, in accordance with the subpattern whereby final long vowels in nouns are (often) metrical.
2.6.5 The exceptions, and the exceptions to exceptions, to extrametricality discussed
above are just the tip of an iceberg of complications (and we haven’t even touched
on any words other than nouns and verbs!). The two main reasons stress
assignment to English words is complex are (i) that there are many different
accents of English, sometimes with very different metrical rules, which are liable to
interfere with one another; (ii) English is very prone to borrow words from other
languages, which may be wholly, partially or not at all assimilated to native stress
patterns, or at different stages along the road to assimilation in the speech of
different speakers.
2.7 Stress above word-level: compounds and phrases
2.7.1 The stress pattern of a word considered in isolation may find itself subordinated to
the stress pattern of a larger unit of which it forms part. For instance, apple by
itself has main stress on the first syllable. But the two-word unit apple pie forms a
metrical unit with main stress on the final syllable, reducing the stress on the first
syllable of apple to secondary.
66
2.7.2 Two-word units in English have characteristically different stress patterns
according to whether they are compounds or phrases:
grEEnhouse
blAckbird
grEAtcoat
green hOUse
black bIrd
great cOAt
On the left we have compound nouns, i.e. a single noun formed out of more than
one (in these cases two) morphological elements. On the right we have phrases
consisting of an adjective followed by a noun. The meanings are very different: a
blackbird is a particular species of bird (which may not always be black): a black
bird is a bird of any species that happens to be black.
2.7.3 The same stress alternation can be seen in these examples. On the left we again
have a compound nouns, on the right a phrase (this time a verb or gerund followed
by its object):
mIncemeat
plAying cards
mince mEAt
playing cArds
In the following example the phrase on the right is ambiguous: the -ing form may
be either adjectival (‘apples that are cooking’, as in cooking apples rarely need to
be watched closely) or gerundal (as in cooking apples is a pain in the neck). That
makes the sequence of words cooking apples, as written, at least three-ways
ambiguous. But the stress pattern remains constant: if it’s a compound it’s stressed
on the first syllable, if it’s a phrase (whatever its grammatical/semantic
interpretation) the main stress falls on a syllable further to the right:
cOOking apples
cooking Apples
Notice that the pattern is at least broadly reminiscent of that for single nouns and
verbs: compound nouns are like nouns in having stress on an early syllable; phrases
are like verbs in having stress on a later syllable. In fact, metrically, it is as if
phrases were treated as ‘compound verbs’, whether or not they actually contain a
verb.
2.7.4 How do you pronounce ice-cream? Some people say ice crEAm, others Ice
cream. In the former case you are treating it as a phrase – ice is ‘adjectival’, as is
pea in pea soup (pea sOUp). In the latter case you are treating it as a compound
noun, i.e. both the cream and the ice components are individually nouns, as is bean
in bean sprout (bEAn sprout).
2.7.5 Notice that spelling is not a reliable guide to whether a two-word unit is a
compound or a phrase. Two-word phrases are indeed written as two words (can
you think of any exceptions? See the discussion of Mississippi in §2.9.1 below).
But compounds may be written as two words, with or without a hyphen, or as one
word. I.e. you can write ice cream, ice-cream or icecream, but you can’t tell from
how you write it whether for you it’s a compound or a phrase. What matters is how
you stress it.
2.7.6 Compare two of the phrases in §2.7.3 with unitary verbs of similar metrical
structure:
67
play.ing | cArds
cook.ing | App.les
su.per | sEde
re.de | vE.lop
The same stess-assignment rules apply. Because these are verbs (or ‘verbs’) there
is no extrametrical syllable; stress falls on the last syllable if that is heavy, on the
penult if the last syllable is light. Note that it makes no difference that cards and
apples, in themselves, are nouns: what matters is that in this context they form part
of a phrase that is metrically equivalent to a polysyllabic verb.
2.7.7 However, if we now take the phrases green house, black bird, mince meat, it is
harder to find exact parallels among simple verbs. The nearest parallels are
disyllabic verbs with unstressed first syllable and (main-)stressed second syllable:
green hOUse
black bIrd
mince mEAt
pro.tEst
com.plAIn
su.pplAnt
These aren’t exact parallels because in the phrases the first syllable is not
unstressed, but secondarily stressed – the vowels can’t be reduced to schwa.
2.7.8 To analyse what is going on here we have to consider how the phrase is built up of
words. The phrase green house consists of two monosyllabic words, each of
which, by itself, can take main stress: grEEn and hOUse. In coming to form part
of the phrase, grEEn subordinates itself to its context by losing its main stress, in
accordance with the pattern for phrases, but doesn’t become completely unstressed.
2.7.9 Something similar applies to compound nouns. Blackbird is made up of blAck and
bIrd. In coming to form part of the compound, bIrd subordinates itself to its
context by losing its main stress. If you like, that the final syllable should do this is
a sort of faint echo of extrametricality. But it is not extrametricality. It is not even
complete loss of stress. In the second element of these compounds the syllable that
would receive main stress if the word was by itself receives secondary stress:
grEEn.house)
blAck.bird
mInce.meat
plAy.ing.cards
cOOk.ing.a.pples
wAsh.ing.pow.der
whI.stle.blow.er
2.8
Single words as phonological compounds
2.8.1 We sometimes find that what from a lexical or grammatical point of view seem
clearly to be unitary nouns behave phonologically as if they were compounds.
Take the word controversy. There is a controversy over how to stress it. Do you
say con.trO.ver.sy or cOn.tro.ver.sy? If you have the former pronunciation you
are treating it as a regular tetrasyllabic noun with a light penult (§2.5.5). If you
have the latter, you are giving it the stress pattern of cOOk.ing.a.pples, i.e. of a
compound.
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2.8.2 This is what is happening if you prefer kI.lo.me.tre to ki.lO.me.tre (cf. §2.3.4
above) – an interesting case because this choice has become something of a
shibboleth in those parts of the English-speaking world where the ‘metric’ (which
just means ‘measuring’) system of weights and measures is in operation. Many
people vociferously insist on the correctness of the former and the abominable
sloppiness of the latter. In fact the latter merely shows that for some speakers
kilometre has assimilated itself to the normal pattern for nouns with this syllable
structure.
The reason that for many others kilometre is treated (like most other terms in the
metric system) as a compound has to do with the structure of these words and their
artificial imposition en bloc as a whole lexical subsystem. They consist of a term
(metre, gram, joule etc.) designating the basic unit in question, preceded by a Greek
or Latin element expressing a multiple (Greek) or fraction (Latin) of that unit.
Many of the words that can be created in this way are quite unfamilar to most
speakers (how often do you hear or use words like decajoule or centiwatt?); their
interpretability and thus the viability of the system depends on maintaining the
structural transparency of the rarer ones, so that their form and meaning can be
worked out from how they are built up according to the rules of the system.
Kilometre, however, is on everyone’s lips all the time, and has (for progressive
speakers at least) escaped the confines of the metric lexical subsystem to become a
regular English word. If a significant number of speakers had as regular an
everyday use for the word centimetre as we do for kilometre, no doubt it would
tend to become cen.tIme.tre.
2.9 Single words as phonological phrases
2.9.1 Consider the stress pattern of certain American topographical names, such as
Mississippi, Susquehannah, Chappaquiddick, etc. These are tetrasyllabic nouns
with a light penult: you would expect *mi.ssI.ssi.ppi, etc. But what you actually
get is mi.ssi.ssI.ppi. This is the stress pattern of phrases, like cook.ing. Apples,
gra.cious. lAdy. What’s happening here?
Morphologically, these words are quite opaque to English-speakers. No doubt for
speakers of the indigenous American languages from which they have been
borrowed or adapted they are as structurally transparent as Riviersonderend or
Pietermaritzburg are for (some of) us. But for English-speakers they present the
problem of having a lot of syllables but no interpretable internal structure: there is
nothing to guide the choice between treating them phonologically as simple words
or as combinations of words. Dealing with them as if they were phrases (Missy
Sippy, etc.) makes as much sense as any alternative.
2.10 Stress clash and stress retraction
2.10.1 The compounds and phrases considered above form units with one main stressed
syllable. But the stress pattern of words may be modified in accordance with the
metrical environment when combined with other words in units that retain more
than one main stress.
(a)
bri.ga.dIEr
kan.ga.rOO
brI.ga.dier | gE.ne.ral
kAn.ga.roo | cOUrt
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(b)
re.fe.rEE
ja.pa.nEse
rE.fe.ree’s | whI.stle
jA.pa.nese | mAr.kets
mi.ssi.ssI.pi
rec.ti.lI.near
south. a.mE.ri.can
mIssi.ssi.ppi | rI.ver.boat
rEc.ti.li.near | fI.gures
sOUth. a.me.ri.can | mU.sic
The words on the left in (a), mostly quoted from §2.6.1, have final stress. The
additional words on the right have initial stress. Putting them together gives rise to
a stress clash. As also happens in (b). In many syntactic circumstances, English
does not tolerate (a) adjacent or (b) near-adjacent main stresses in words that go
together to form a phonological unit, and deals with the situation by retracting
(moving to an earlier syllable) the first of the two clashing stresses.
What are the syntactic circumstances in question? Look at some more examples
from §2.6.1:
an.tIque
chim.pan.zEE
co.cka.tOO
an.tIque | dEA.ler
chim.pan.zEE | trAI.ner
co.cka.tOO | brEE.der
Why no stress retraction here? There’s a clue in the first example. Remember that
antique is also an adjective, and constrast the following pair:
an.tIque
An.tique | chAIr
Here you do get stress retraction as a response to the clash. In these phrases,
retraction depends on whether the first element is an adjective, or stands in an
‘adjectival’ relationship to the second. Just as an antique chair is a kind of chair, so
a brigadier general is a kind of general, a referee’s whistle a kind of whistle, and so
on. But an antique dealer is not a dealer who is antiquated, nor is a cockatoo
breeder a breeder who is, or who has the qualities or properties of, a cockatoo. This
illustrates once again the point that stress is sensitive to grammar.
2.11 Relexification induced by stress retraction
2.11.1 London’s major international airport is built on the site of a now obliterated rural
village known within living memory as Heath Row – two words, stressed as a
phrase: heath. rOw, like meat. pIE. Today many people call the airport
hEAth.row – a compound, like grEEn.house. Why? As the name of the airport it
was from the outset treated orthographically as one word: Heathrow. But that in
itself made no difference to its stress pattern: remember that how a two-word unit is
written bears no consistent relation to whether it is phonologically a phrase or a
compound. What made the difference was stress retraction in the context of one
particular larger phrase:
heath. rOw
hEAth.row | AIr.port
The point is that Heathrow Airport is a very frequent combination of words,
perhaps as frequent as Heathrow by itself. Hearing it so often in this context, with
initial stress, some speakers have relexified it as a compound.
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