Syllable

Sequences of segments are organized into syllables, just like MORPHEMES are organized into words and words are organized into phrases and sentences in the linguistic system. The syllable plays an important role in understanding SUPRASEGMENTAL PROPERTIES such as stress and tone and the organization of PROSODIC STRUCTURE in words, phrases, and sentences. Phonetically (that is, in relation to the way we produce them and the way they sound), syllables are usually described as consisting of a center which has little or no obstruction to airflow and which sounds comparatively loud; before and after this center (that is, at the beginning and end of the syllable), there will be greater obstruction to airflow and/or less loud sound.

1. Syllable structure A syllable can be analyzed in terms of ONSET, consonants). (4) onset nucleus/peak syllable rime coda
RIME, NUCLEUS,

and

CODA (which

are

(5) Examples of Mandarin syllable structure (cf. in Chinese pinyin: huan & huai; cf. English swan [swan] and sway [swei]) = syllable O = onset C = consonant G = glide a. O N C G x w V a R Co C n C G x w R = rime V = vowel b. O N = nucleus Co = coda VV = diphthong R N V V a i

A syllable that has no coda is called an OPEN SYLLABLE and a syllable that has a coda is called a CLOSED SYLLABLE. In Mandarin, most syllables are open syllables. 1

One major difference between the syllable in Mandarin and that in English is that English can have more segments in the onset and coda, e.g. strange [streind], in which three consonants [str] are in the onset and two consonants [nd] are in the coda. Compared with English, Mandarin has a simpler syllable structure and many fewer syllable types. In Mandarin, the onset typically contains just one consonant, and in some cases contains a consonant and a glide (i.e. [j, w]). As for the coda, which most Mandarin syllables do not have, it can contain only one consonant. In English, the word can begin with a vowel, or with one, two or three consonants. No word begins with more than three consonants. The word can end with a vowel, or with one, two, three or (in a small number of cases) four consonants. No word ends with more than four consonants. That is, the onset in English can have at most three consonants and the coda can have at most four consonants. Phonotactics: Studying syllables from the phonological point of view involves looking at the possible combinations of the phonemes in a language; the study of the possible phoneme combinations of a language is called phonotactics.

2. (Re)syllabification Definition: SYLLABIFICATION is a process that assigns a sequence of segments in a word or phrase into appropriate syllable positions, i.e. a process that organizes segments into syllables. RESYLLABIFICATION is a process in which the affiliation of a segment in a syllable structure can be reassigned through a new round of syllabification when two morphemes or two words are put together. E.g. diplomat & diplomatic; catch you [kh.tju] A universal principlethe Sonority Sequencing Principle: (6) The Sonority Sequencing Principle (The SSP) The syllable has increasing sonority before the nucleus and decreasing sonority after the nucleus. The sonority peak of a syllable is the nuclear segment or the more sonorous segment within the nucleus. Sound segments differ in the degree of sonority. Of two sounds with the same length, stress, and pitch, a more sonorous sound resonates more and is perceived as being louder. Vowels are more sonorous than consonants. Among vowels, low vowels are more sonorous than mid vowels, which in turn are more sonorous than high vowels. Among consonants, approximants are more sonorous than fricatives, which in turn are more sonorous than stops. 2

(7)

Sonority hierarchy (more sonorous > > less sonorous) low vowels > > mid vowels > > high vowels > > approximants > > nasals > > fricatives > > stops/affricates Other than the acoustic and auditory characteristics that define the degree of sonority, the sonority hierarchy corresponds to the degree of CONSTRICTION in articulation. Vowels have little obstruction of the airstream and hence are more sonorous than consonants. The lower a vowel, the more open the vowel for the air to flow out, and the more sonorous the vowel is. Among the consonants, the more constriction a consonant has, the less air can flow out freely, and the less sonorous the consonant is. This is why low vowels are at the top of the sonority hierarchy and stops, affricates, and fricatives are at the lower end of the sonority hierarchy. The sonority sequencing principle (SSP) in (6) serves as the basic universal principle of organizing segments into syllables. For example, in English [t] forms a possible onset as in train, but cannot be in the coda (e.g. there is no single syllable like neatr), whereas the reverse sequence [t] can be in the coda as in cart but cannot be in the onset (e.g. there is no single syllable like rtak). In Mandarin, a consonant-glide onset like [tw] is good but a glide-consonant onset like [wt] is not possible. All permissible syllable types in Mandarin observe the SSP. However, there are some exceptions to the SSP in other languages, including English. E.g. English [st] as an onset. {an alternative analysis of [st]????}

Another universal principlethe Maximal Onset Principle For a POLYSYLLABIC word, there is the question as to which consonants in the middle of the word should be assigned to the onset of the following syllable and which to the coda of the preceding syllable. E.g. [t.kt] or [.tkt]? The universal MAXIMAL ONSET PRINCIPLE prefers maximizing the syllabification of consonants to the following onset as long as the resulting onset is a permissible onset of the language in question. Rationale: (i) The most basic syllable type in human language is the CV syllable since all languages have CV syllable structure but not all languages have V or CVC syllable types. In terms of articulation and perception, a CV syllable is easier to produce and easier to perceive, since a rhythm of a sequence of CV syllables consisting of low sonority plus high sonority makes clear the syllable boundaries in a continuous flow of speech. (ii) Moreover, in many languages, including Mandarin, only a limited number of consonants are allowed in the coda, and crosslinguistically coda consonants tend to be deleted or weakened by losing some articulatory features. 3

Apparent violation in MandarinA case of Tinnmn: Why is the Maximal Onset Principle not applicable to n? This syllable is one of the so-called zeroinitial syllables that seem to be without an onset. However, the principle can be kept intact as a universal principle if it can be argued that in Mandarin either reassigning a coda consonant to onset position is prohibited or the zero-initial syllable in fact has onset in its syllable structure representation. o In general, SC does not apply resyllabification across morpheme or word boundaries. That is why a zero-initial syllable does not attract the coda consonant of the preceding syllable to become its own onset. o However, a better line of explanation is that the zero-initial syllable actually already contains an onset and therefore no resyllabification can occur. One piece of evidence comes from the fact that the zero-initial syllable can often be pronounced with a consonant or glide. As shown in (8), in a zero-onset syllable, if the nucleus is a high vowel, then the onset can be the corresponding glide (which is also reflected in pnyn), and if the nucleus is a low or mid vowel, then the onset can be [] or [].

(8)

Zero-initial syllables a. [i]55 [ji]55 [u]214 [wu]214 b. [an]55 [an]55 or [an]55

y w n

one five peace

More evidence: When a zero-initial syllable is a weak toneless syllable, such as the phrase or sentence final injection marker a, the coda consonant or the last high vowel of the preceding syllable is geminated (i.e. lengthened) and then the zero-initial a has an onset. The onset of the weak syllable usually has [j] when the preceding syllable has a mid or low vowel. (9) Zero-initial function word a. nn a! [nan]35[a] b. kui a! [kwai]53[a] c. w a! [wo]21[a]

[nan]35[na]2 [kwai]53[ja]1 [wo]21[ja]4

Hard! Hurry! Me!

3. Phonotactics Languages are similar with respect to the universal principles of syllabification and yet languages can be quite different in which segment sequences are allowed in a syllable.

PHONOTACTIC CONSTRAINTS (or PHONOTACTICS) are language-specific restrictions on what sequences of segments can be combined. Some general phonotactic constraints in Mandarin The maximal number of onset segments is limited to two and the second segment must be a glide. E.g. [kwai] There can be only one coda consonant in Mandarin; it is limited to [n] and [] in non-rhotacized rimes and can be only [] in RHOTACIZED rimes. E.g. [min], [s ] The maximal number of segments in the rime is limited to two: either a diphthong (counting like two vowel units) or a monophthong (one vowel unit) followed by a single consonant. E.g. *[ain] {* indicates ill-formedness.}

Some phonotactic constraints in English The maximal number of onset segments is limited to three and, more importantly, if there are three consonants in the onset, the first one must be an [s], the second one a stop, and the third one a liquid ([l] or []) or glide ([j] or [w]), e.g. spring, squeeze, split, spray, string, screen, square, scream, stream If the syllable begins with one consonant, that initial consonant may be any consonant phoneme except ; is rare (e.g. genre).

When there is one consonant in the coda, it can be any consonant except h, r, w, j. The maximal number of consonants allowed in a coda is four. E.g. twelfths, prompts, sixths, texts {Maybe with a potential exception: angsts /ksts/}

Writing System
1. Introduction While English uses the Latin or Roman alphabet, which is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world, Mandarin employs characters, a nonalphabetic writing system. Grapheme: It is the basic graphic unit in a script that corresponds to the smallest segment of speech represented in writing. English graphemes are letters, whereas Chinese graphemes are characters. Writing systems in the world can be differentiated along two dimensions. First is the size of the speech segments that are represented by the basic graphic units, and second is whether the graphic units encode speech sound only, or both speech sound and meaning. Writing systems differ with regard to whether it is phoneme or syllable that is represented by the grapheme. Graphemes in languages like English represent phonemes, which may assume the form of a letter or group of letters. Graphemes in languages like Chinese represent a syllable. Thus, the writing systems of languages like English are said to be phonemic, whereas those of Chinese are syllabic. Furthermore, graphemes differ with regard to whether they encode pure phonetic values, or phonetic values together with meaning. Those used as pure phonetic symbols devoid of meaning are called phonographic, whereas those encoding phonetic value together with meaning are called logographic. The former are exemplified by letters in languages like English, and the latter by characters in Chinese.

2. Chinese writing system The Chinese writing system is one of the earliest writing systems of the world. The earliest fully developed Chinese writing that we know of today is the inscriptions on turtle shells and oxen shoulder blades, commonly known as the oracle-bone script that appeared in the mid-second millennium BC during the Late Shang Dynasty. [The earliest writing system in the world that we know appeared in Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq, around the mid-fourth millennium BCE, nearly two millennia earlier than the independently developed Chinese writing system. Sumerian cuneiform (cf. Egyptian hieroglyphs)] History of the Chinese script 6

One of the Chinese legends attributes the invention of writing to a legendary figure Cang Jie, , the royal scribe at the court of the powerful Yellow Emperor. Through observing the patterns of the tracks left behind by the feet of birds, Cang Ji invented Chinese writing. After the oracle-bone script, jigwn, of the Shang dynasty, there came the bronze script, jnwn, which was used to create inscriptions engraved on bronze vessels. Bronze inscriptions found in the Zhou dynasty (1100-771 BC) in some cases with hundreds of characters per piececonstitute the model for later brush-writing techniques. As compared to the oracle-bone script, the bronze script is a less angular and more linearized style of writing. After the Warring States period (475-221 BC), during which various states had different writing styles, the Qin dynasty (221-206 BC) politically unified the Chinese states and adopted zhunsh seal script, the writing script of the Qin state during the Warring States period, as the national standard of the newly founded empire. Zhunsh is divided into two types: dzhun great seal and xiozhun small seal, with the former bearing a stronger resemblance to the earlier bronze script and the latter resembling more the clerical script, lsh , which is mainly a writing style created by lower-ranking officials of the Qin dynasty.

Clerical script later developed into kish standard script after the Handynasty invention of paper. Since then, the standard script was used as the official Chinese orthography for about two millennia, until 1965, when a simplified standard script was officially adopted in the Peoples Republic of China. Two examples: shu water (http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE6ZdicB0ZdicB4.htm) and yu moon (http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE6Zdic9CZdic88.htm)

The logic of Chinese characters: The majority (more exactly, over 90%) of Chinese characters consist of two parts, one being the semantic component and the other being the phonetic component. As far as common characters are concerned, such semanticphonetic compounds constitute 74% of the most commonly used 2,000 characters. e.g. sh ( sh exam; sh to wipe away stains) di ( di bag; di loan) Pros or merits of the Chinese script: From a purely linguistic perspective, the Chinese writing system has two major advantages in comparison to the various phonographic writings which have been proposed for the language: (i) its capacity to differentiate homophonous morphemes and (ii) its versatility in bridging time and dialects. 7

Differentiation of homophonous morphemes: The great majority of Chinese morphemes are monosyllabic, and owing to the limited number of syllables in Chinese, there are many homophonous morphemes. When morphemes are represented by characters, there is litter danger of ambiguity, as distinct characters serve the important function of differentiating the homophonous morphemes. In the list of 3500 common characters in Modern Chinese published by the State Language Commission and the State Education Commission in 1988, only 31.5 per cent of the tonal syllables are represented by only one character; 68.5 per cent are represented by at least two homophonous characters, with 15.8 per cent by six or more. e.g. li (http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/wordsearch.php?searchMode=P&word=li &search=Search)

Use across time and dialects: One of the most lauded merits of the Chinese script is its ability to span times and dialects. As characters can have different phonetic values in different times and at different places, they can be used to represent the Chinese language spoken in different periods and in different geographic areas. It is largely by virtue of this feature that it is much easier for present-day Chinese to read the writings of more than 2,000 years ago than it is for the users of a phonographic system, such as English, to read texts from very early times. To a certain extent, it is also by virtue of this feature that the Chinese people can sometimes communicate in writing even if they speak mutually unintelligible dialects. Throughout Chinese history, writing has been a unifying force as speakers of different, mutually unintelligible Chinese languages can easily communicate in a common written language. Its script uniquely transcends time and space. The Chinese character, water pronounced as shu in standard Chinese, is pronounced as [fei] in the Northwestern Xian dialect, [sui] in the Eastern Yangzhou dialect, [y] in the Yue dialect of Guangzhou, and [tsui] in the Min dialect of Xiamen.

Cons: Difficulty of learning: Although over 90 per cent of characters in Modern Chinese belong to the xngshng category, i.e. the semantic-phonetic type, the phonetic determinatives of xngshng characters are not to be treated on a part with the sound-indicating symbols like letters in English. While the number of basic phonetic symbols in a phonographic system is usually no more than a few dozen, an analysis of the xngshng characters in Modern Chinese shows that there are around 1,300 distinct symbols that are used as phonetic determinatives, 8

and 250 as semantic determinatives, thus demanding strenuous effort on the part of learners. Furthermore, a large portion of these phonetic and semantic determinatives provide only a vague hint as to the phonetic value and semantic category of the characters that contain them. Due to historical sound change, more often than not there is considerable discrepancy between the Modern Chinese pronunciation of the phonetic determinatives and their pronunciation at the time when they were first incorporated into the xngshng characters in question. Recent investigations reveal that, out of the 5,990 common xngshng characters in Modern Chinese, only 1,578 are pronounced exactly the same as the phonetic determinative with regard to the initial, final, and tone, accounting for 26.3 per cent of the total. The percentage is even lower with the xngshng characters that are most commonly used. The indicative ability is higher with semantic determinatives. Out of the most commonly used 2,522 xngshng characters, 2,082 have semantic determinatives that indicate the thesaurus-like category of the containing characters in a way that ranges from precise to remotely suggestive. Difficulty of use: Owing to the complicated nature of the graphic structures, the Chinese script is much less convenient than a phonographic system when it comes to indexing and retrieving, such as in cataloging, dictionary compilation, etc., where the ordering of the writing symbols is involved. Contribution to dialectal diversity: It is generally maintained that the logographicity of the script is a contributing factor to the dialectal diversity of the Chinese language. As characters have different phonetic values in different dialects, the writing system does not encourage the promotion of a spoken lingua franca among the speakers of dialects in the same way as a phonographic system does.

Reminder

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