Talk:Syllable

Article Checklist for "Syllable"

Workgroup category or categories	Linguistics Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	No
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	John Stephenson 03:30, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

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Syllable breakdown for example words needed, and other miscellaneous comments

Nice article; I enjoyed reading it.

Would someone please supply the breakdown into syllables of the words "corruption" and "computer" so it can be displayed in the article? Without that information, the following sentence under "Onset and rhyme" can't be meaningfully followed: "In English, for example, the medial syllables in corruption and computer both carry main stress, even though one contains only a vowel, and the other a vowel and a consonant. " I tried two dictionaries but they didn't give syllable breakdowns.

I disagree with the following statement under "Branching": "As branching occurs in the aforementioned corruption and computer, stressing is triggered." I believe the stress pattern of "computer" for example can be fully explained by rules that have little or nothing to do with numbers of consonants. The second-syllable stress of "compute" is because it's a verb (compare "REcord" and "reCORD") and/or because "com" is a prefix. The stress pattern of "computer" follows naturally from that. Besides, without the syllable breakdown given, the argument can't even be understood.

Re this sentence, earlier in the paragraph under "Branching": "Branching constituents are highly marked in languages, in that single constituents must also exist as a prerequisite, and branching ones are never obligatory. " I'm not sure that the word "marked" is being used correctly here. In any case, I think a definition of "marked" has to be given -- or perhaps the bit about being marked could simply be deleted: "When there are ranching constituents in a language, single constituents must also exist as a prerequisite. Branching ones are never obligatory." Actually, what does this mean: "Branching ones are never obligatory." If I want to use the word "train", I'm obliged to use a branching onset, right? Does "never obligatory" mean that for each type of constituent, there exist languages in which these are never branched? Or what does it mean? I think it means that if there are branching constituents in a language, then there are also words in that language in which those consituents do not branch; in other words, it's simply a repeat of what was already said earlier in the sentence. I think this sentence is ambiguous. If it's a repeat of what was already said, then a phrase such as "in other words" would help the reader not to go off thinking up other meanings. If it means something else, it needs to be clarified. Also, I think the word "highly" is probably unnnecessary.

Re the following under "Evidence for the syllable": "*Speech errors and wordplay seem to keep syllables intact; e.g. town drain is a possible spoonerism for down train, but *nown traid is not;" I love seeing these sorts of linguistic examples comparing what is and is not possible in speech. (If I may digress, my favourite ones are *"Who did you wonder which present will give?" (from Haegeman, L.) and *"There's the sight of the bell!" (from Lakoff, G.) However, in this particular case, while this is an interesting example, it is not an example which illustrates what it is purported to illustrate. Syllables are not kept intact in either the possible or the impossible spoonerism. "down" is a syllable, for example (I believe -- if not, that needs to be explained!) and is changed in both cases.