🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov1.064305.17062@midway.uchicago.edu> goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz) writes:

> It often happens that I'm unsure about where to place a syllable division
> in English.  I think that syllabification, like the alphabetic principle,
> is something that is, in large part, learned.  I also note that (at least

I'd tend to agree. Although people keep telling me that it's
just natural, I still can't do it. For example, I would write
extra as eks.tra.

I keep thinking that some of these words should really have some
very short vowels in between consonant clusters. For example, it
seems like there's a very short schwa right after t in ekstra.


> This definition of phonotactics looks to me like an escape.  If the syllabi-
> fication algorithms we're using don't work, then let's just say that certain
> sounds have to group certain ways, and that these necessary sequencing con-
> straints override syllabification.  Perhaps it's just me, but this sounds
> like mere taxonomy used to cover up an inadequate system.

It seems to me that syllabification rules were given (developed) 
before scientific study and people are trying to make up rules to
fit the facts. If that is so, then there seems to be a possibility
of developing different syllabification schemes.

I keep seeing references in this newsgroup to 'smallest units of
somethings' like phonemes, lexemes, morphemes and I was wondering
how the syllable fit in this scheme. Is it the smallest unit of
anything ? It seems to me to be small unit made up of phonemes but
I still don't find a 'natural-logical' way of breaking up
words. I find that many other people whose first language was
not English have this  problem.

At first I thought my problems were due to the fact that the
English orthography was not phonetic. I tried writing the words
in a phonetic alphabet but it still did not work out!

I keep trying to do it as in Turkish which has really simple 
rules but the language helps it. The syllables are only
of four different forms; V,VC,CVC, or CV. And the first two, whenever
possible, are avoided so that it only seems to occur at the beginning
of words which begin with a vowel. Examples.

E-ve gi-di-yo-rum ge-le-ce-gim on-de o-nun o-la-cak 

Anyway, I don't see any need for syllables or for rules for
syllabification in the study of any aspect of language.

Are there any ?

> I use that term loosely.  The question I'm after is just how abstract a
> level we can go to and still find syllables as basic structural units.  The
> lexicon itself?  The lexical phonological rules?  Post-lexical?

yes, my problem too. The best analogy I can find is from Comp Sci.

Clock Cycle : Machine Cycle : Instruction Cycle

Phoneme:  Syllable  : Word.

The problem is that there are good reasons for Machine Cycles whereas
for syllables I don't see any, not yet anyway.
-- 

	mark	


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