Groups of Sounds (20-Nov-2003)

Not only does a language employ a certain set of phonemes, but those phonemes will be arranged into groups of sounds that make syllables, and for any language, there will be rules which constrain which combination of phonemes make up legal syllables. For example, some languages (e.g. Japanese) permit syllables that are CV (consonant-vowel) pattern. This means you can't have a CVC syllable in Japanese (you couldn't say "bat", you'd have to say something like "batu"). "The limitations on sequences of segments are called phonotactic constraints" [Fromkin, p.323]. The fact that different languages have different constraints is one reason why a native speaker of one language may have a noticeable "accent" when attempting to speak a different language which has a different set of constraints. E.g. Japanese speakers pronounce "McDonalds" sounding more like "makudonarudo".

English has relatively complex syllable structures, with up to four consonants allowed in a row (e.g. the word "sixths" has CVCCCC ), but for clumps of consecutive consonants, the allowable combinations are limited - e.g. "when three consonants appear at the beginning of a word, the restrictions are so tight that the third can only be either an /l/ or an /r/" [from Ron Brasington's page on Phonotactics].

Syllables can be broken down into:

E.g. for the syllable "scratched":

Syllables which have the same nucleus and code rhyme (e.g. "ball", "fall", "hall", and so this subsyllabic unit is referred to as "rime" [sic] [Fromkin p.318].

Speakers of Rennellese (in the Solomon Islands) borrow many words from English, but have different phonotactic constraints, which mean that they pronounce the words differently, e.g.

See Ron Brasington's page on Phonotactics

Useful book readings for this lecture:


Sounds, Grammar and Meaning page