Syllable

Syllable

A Syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. It is typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) and optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "building blocks" of words. They can influence the rhythm of a language, its prosody, its poetic meter, its stress patterns, and its phonotactics.

Structure

The general structure of a syllable consists of the following segments:

• Onset
• Rime
• Nucleus
• Coda

The onset is the initial consonant or consonant cluster of the syllable, the rime is the part of the syllable that follows the onset, the nucleus is typically a vowel, and the coda consists of any consonants that follow the nucleus.

Syllable structure in different languages

Different languages have different restrictions on the structure of syllables, affecting the distribution of phonemes throughout a word. Some languages like Japanese and Finnish have a relatively simple syllable structure, while others, like English and Russian, have a more complex structure.

Syllable count

The number of syllables in a word is a piece of information that can be useful for various purposes, such as composing poetry or song lyrics, or helping with pronunciation in language learning.

See also

• Mora
• Phoneme
• Phonotactics
• Prosody
• Rime
• Stress
• Vowel

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  Syllable

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  Syllable illustration 1

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  Chinese syllable tree

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  Syllable onset rhyme

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  Syllable illustration 2

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  Syllable body coda

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  Syllable illustrations 3 and 4

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  Syllable onset nucleus coda