What is a syllable as a phonetic unit

The syllable as a phonetic unit attracts the attention of many linguists, since the main sound changes occur inside the syllable. Human speech is a speech stream or a sound chain. One of the phonetic units of speech is considered a syllable. The syllable can be viewed from different perspectives.

In modern linguistics, there are different points of view on the nature of the syllable and the problem of syllable separation. In a general sense, a syllable is the smallest unit of speech division. From a phonetic point of view, a syllable is considered as a sound segment of speech in which one sound is more sonorous in comparison with neighboring ones. In phonetics, the essence of a syllable can be determined from acoustic and articulatory positions. The approach depends on which side of speech is important to the researcher. Articulatory understanding of the syllable is associated with the sound side of the language. We make a sound or a combination of sounds with one exhalation push, using an articulatory apparatus. This definition of syllable can be found in school textbooks.

From an acoustic point of view, a word is divided into syllables depending on the degree of sonority of the sounds standing next to it. Therefore, a syllable can be defined as a combination of sounds with varying degrees of sonority. Soundness is how a person hears sound from the side. The syllable always has a syllabic and non-syllabic sound. For example, in the word “dog” there are three syllables and syllabic vowels “o”, “a”, “o”. The most sonorous are considered vowels or syllables. Sound can also be formed by sonor consonants (p, l, m, n).

In phonetics, syllables are divided into open and closed, undisguised and covered. An open syllable always ends with a syllabic sound: ma-ma, zhara, ma-shi-na, etc. A closed syllable ends with a non-syllable sound: a table, here, a house, etc. An open syllable begins with a vowel: um, oh- on, y-move, etc. Accordingly, a covered syllable begins with a consonant: be-ret, me-me, for-be, etc. Depending on the length of the sound, short and long syllables are distinguished. These syllables are important in versification when you need to write a poem with the correct rhyme. Syllables can also be stressed or unstressed.

The end of one syllable and the beginning of another in phonetics is called the syllable section or border of the syllable. The word is divided into syllables in accordance with the law of upward sonority common to the Russian language or the law of an open syllable. That is, the sounds in the word range from less sonorous to more sonorous. When we divide a word into syllables, the boundary between syllables most often passes after the vowel and before the consonant: ma-shi-na, ma-ha-zin, ka-sha, etc. The law of upward sonority is always observed in syllables that do not appear at the beginning the words. Therefore, when dividing a word into syllables, we use rules based on general patterns in the distribution of consonants between vowels.

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