LINB09H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Syllable, Monophthong, Diphthong
Document Summary
Not all vowels occur in all possible environment: e. g. /bi/ and /bej/ are possible monosyllabic words in english, whereas /bi/ and /b(cid:2097)/ are not. The description of the distributional possibilities of sounds is called phonotactics. Muscle is not necessarily in a state of greater tension during the production of tense vowels. The lax vowel /(cid:2097)/ occurs only in a closed syllable, that is one ending in a consonant: e. g. (cid:858)pet(cid:859)- /p(cid:2097)t/, but there is no possible word in english of the shape /p(cid:2097)/ We can state the generalisation that in english lax vowels do not occur in word-final open syllables. An open syllable is one which ends in a vowel or glide with no final consonant: tense vowels, however, occur in both open and closed syllables. There are 20 different vowel nuclei in rp. A nucleus is the vocalic or vowel part of a syllable. 12 of these vowels are monophthongs, that is simple nuclei- only one vowel symbol.
