Syllable Formal Ion Essay Example for Free

Syllable Formal Ion EssayThus a meaningful language unit phonetically may be contemplateed from the bakshish of arrest of syllable formation and syllable division. The syllable is a complicated phenomenon and like a phoneme it give the bounce be studied on four levels articulatory, acoustic, auditory and functional. The complexity of the phenomenon gave rise to legion(predicate) theories. We could start with the so-called expiratory (chest pulse or pressure) theory by R. H. Stetson. This theory is based on the assumption that expiration in speech is a pulsating process and each syllable should correspond to a single expiration. So the number of syllables in an utterance is determined by the number of expirations made in the issue of the utterance. This theory was strongly criticized by Russian and foreign linguists. G. P. Torsuyev, for example, wrote that in a phrase a number of words and consequently a number of syllables can be pronounced with a single expiration. This fact makes the validity of the theory doubtful. A nonher theory of syllable put forward by O. Jespersen is generally called the sonority theory. match to O.Jespersen, each weighed down is characterized by a certain degree of sonority which is understood us acoustic property of a sound that determines its perceptibility. According to this sound property a ranking of speech sounds could be established voiceless plosives ( voiced fricatives (voiced plosives ( voiced fricatives ( sonorants ( close vowels (open vowels . In the word plant for example we may use the following wave of sonority plant. According to V. A. Vasssilyev the most serious drawback of this theory is that it fails to explain the actual mechanism of syllable formation and syllable division.Besides, the concept of sonority is not very clearly defined. Further experimental work aimed to description of the syllable resulted in lot of other theories. However the question of articulatory mechanism of syllable in a still a n open question in phonetics. We might suppose that this mechanism is similar in all languages and could be regarded as phonetic universal. In Russian linguistics there has been adopted the theory of syllable by LV Shcherba. It is called the theory of mesomorphic tension.In most languages there is the syllabic phoneme in the centre of the syllable which is ordinarily a vowel phoneme or, in some languages, a sonorant. The phonemes preceding or following the syllabic peak are called marginal. The tense of articulation increases within the dress of prevocalic consonants and then decreases within the range of postvocalic consonants. Russian linguist and psychologist N. I. Zhinkin has suggested the so-called loudness theory which seems to combine both production and perception levels. The experiments carried out by N.I. Zhinkin showed that the veer of loudness of perception level is formed due to variations of the volume pharyngeal passage which is modified by contractions of its wall s. The narrowing of the passage and the increase in muscular tension which results from it reinforce the actual loudness of a vowel thus forming the peak of the syllabic. So the syllable is the arc ?f loudness which correlates with the arc of articulatory travail on the speed production level since variations in loudness are due to the work of all speech mechanisms.It is perfectly obvious that no phonetician has succeeded so far in giving an adequate explanation of what the syllable is. The difficulties seem to arise from the various possibilities of approach to the unit. There exist two headsprings of view 1. S?me linguists consider the syllable to be a purely articulatory unit which lacks any functional value. This point of view is defended on the ground that the boundaries of syllables do not always accede with those of morphemes. 2.However the majority of linguists treat the syllable as the smallest pronounceable unit which can reveal some linguistic function. Trying to defin e the syllable from articulatory point of view we may talk about universals. When we mean the functional aspect of the syllable it should be defined with the reference to the structure of one item language. The definition of the syllable from the functional point of view tends to single out the following features of the syllable a) a syllable is a chain of phonemes of varying length b) a syllable is constructed on the basis f contrast of its constituents (which is commonly of vowel consonant type) c) the nucleus of a syllable is a vowel, the presence of consonants is optional there are no languages in which vowels are not used as syllable nuclei, however, there are languages in which this function is performed by consonants d) the distribution of phonemes in the syllabic structure follows by the rules which are specific enough for a particular language. 2. The structure and functions of syllables in English Syllable formation in English is based on the phonological opposition vow el consonant.