The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

[Imralu]

Also, the talk of syllable boundaries reminds me of two flatmates arguing over whose room their shared wall is in.

[Travis B.]

Maybe I'm not aware of something, but shouldn't syllabification show real division of speech? When I see your conversation I think you write mostly about formal distribution of sounds to syllables. To explain, I syllabify Polish words shouting them in my mind and seeing how do I divide given word. Based on this I go from formal division of singing /sɪŋ.ɪŋ/ based on phonotactics of final and initial syllables to real (for me), /sɪ.ŋɪŋ/, based on my [sɪː˦.ŋɪːŋ˥]. So, if I were you I would try it. Will you shout [sɪːŋ˦.ɪːŋ˥]?

Syllables mean nothing phonetically - they are purely phonological in nature.

There might be a prosodic difference in mora-timed languages, where coda consonants counts as morae, while onset consonants (and complex onsets) do not. In such a language /sɪ.ŋɪŋ/ would be moraified as /sɪ-ŋɪ-ŋ/ (3 morae), while /sɪŋ.ɪŋ/ would be moraified as /sɪ-ŋ-ɪ-ŋ/ (4 morae).

Sure, but that is phonological.

[ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪]

Maybe I'm not aware of something, but shouldn't syllabification show real division of speech? When I see your conversation I think you write mostly about formal distribution of sounds to syllables. To explain, I syllabify Polish words shouting them in my mind and seeing how do I divide given word. Based on this I go from formal division of singing /sɪŋ.ɪŋ/ based on phonotactics of final and initial syllables to real (for me), /sɪ.ŋɪŋ/, based on my [sɪː˦.ŋɪːŋ˥]. So, if I were you I would try it. Will you shout [sɪːŋ˦.ɪːŋ˥]?

Syllables mean nothing phonetically - they are purely phonological in nature.

There might be a prosodic difference in mora-timed languages, where coda consonants counts as morae, while onset consonants (and complex onsets) do not. In such a language /sɪ.ŋɪŋ/ would be moraified as /sɪ-ŋɪ-ŋ/ (3 morae), while /sɪŋ.ɪŋ/ would be moraified as /sɪ-ŋ-ɪ-ŋ/ (4 morae).

Sure, but that is phonological.

An objection! (Phoenix Wright!) Following this, what use is of resyllabification (enchaînement) in French?

[Travis B.]

An objection! (Phoenix Wright!) Following this, what use is of resyllabification (enchaînement) in French?

I am not familiar with French phonology, but there has to be some rules regarding how phonemes are rendered into phones in French that are impacted by syllabification that you just are not aware of. Simply put, syllables don't exist phonetically.

[KathTheDragon]

Simply put, syllables don't exist phonetically.

Source please. This is a very counter-intuitive assertion and I want more than your word that it's true.

[Pole, the]

There might be a prosodic difference in mora-timed languages, where coda consonants counts as morae, while onset consonants (and complex onsets) do not. In such a language /sɪ.ŋɪŋ/ would be moraified as /sɪ-ŋɪ-ŋ/ (3 morae), while /sɪŋ.ɪŋ/ would be moraified as /sɪ-ŋ-ɪ-ŋ/ (4 morae).

Sure, but that is phonological.

It is prosodic, so it can have acoustic consequences, especially when it comes to the pitch and duration of sounds.

I'm not saying it's the case for English, but some other languages could have that distinction.

[Travis B.]

Simply put, syllables don't exist phonetically.

Source please. This is a very counter-intuitive assertion and I want more than your word that it's true.

To put simply, is there any effect of syllabification that is common to all languages? If syllabification was phonetic, then this should exist. But if this does not exist, then syllabification is simply something that governs how phonemes are rendered into phones rather than part of the phones themselves.

[Travis B.]

It is prosodic, so it can have acoustic consequences, especially when it comes to the pitch and duration of sounds.

I'm not saying it's the case for English, but some other languages could have that distinction.

Pitch and length are part of the phones phonemes are rendered as. But what I am questioning is whether syllabification itself exists phonetically, as opposed to simply being something that, depending on different languages' phonological rules, is rendered into things like pitch and length.

[KathTheDragon]

Simply put, syllables don't exist phonetically.

Source please. This is a very counter-intuitive assertion and I want more than your word that it's true.

To put simply, is there any effect of syllabification that is common to all languages? If syllabification was phonetic, then this should exist. But if this does not exist, then syllabification is simply something that governs how phonemes are rendered into phones rather than part of the phones themselves.

Can you prove there isn't? The burden of proof is on you, Travis. I also noticed that there are no links in your post.

[Imralu]

This is really interesting and should be split, I think. Syllabification is a big enough topic to be worthy of its own thread and there is a lot to cover here.

[Travis B.]

Can you prove there isn't? The burden of proof is on you, Travis. I also noticed that there are no links in your post.

Um the original, implicit assertion being made here is that syllabification is phonetic, as made below:

Maybe I'm not aware of something, but shouldn't syllabification show real division of speech? When I see your conversation I think you write mostly about formal distribution of sounds to syllables. To explain, I syllabify Polish words shouting them in my mind and seeing how do I divide given word. Based on this I go from formal division of singing /sɪŋ.ɪŋ/ based on phonotactics of final and initial syllables to real (for me), /sɪ.ŋɪŋ/, based on my [sɪː˦.ŋɪːŋ˥]. So, if I were you I would try it. Will you shout [sɪːŋ˦.ɪːŋ˥]?

Here ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ implicitly asserts that "real" division of speech even exists. This is a positive assertion, and thus should be defensible, as ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ after all only needs to find one example. But you rather just accept ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪'s implicit assertion.

Maybe I should have insisted that ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ prove that syllables even exist phonetically rather than just stating that they don't, because to do what you insist I do would involve digging through literature for who knows how long - and I don't have access to things published in for-pay journals - and as after all I made a negative statement, it is impossible to prove it anyways.

[KathTheDragon]

Frankly, I see no reason to accept your assertion, while syllables are very clearly a very real phenomenon in at least my speech. E.g. I say "mistake" as /mɪ.'stɛɪk/, and "mis-take" as /'mɪs.tɛɪk/ (using phonemic slashes for broad transcription because I have neither the time nor the will to do a narrow transcription, so don't you dare use it as fuel for your rhetoric) with the /s/ in different syllables.

[Travis B.]

Frankly, I see no reason to accept your assertion, while syllables are very clearly a very real phenomenon in at least my speech. E.g. I say "mistake" as /mɪ.'stɛɪk/, and "mis-take" as /'mɪs.tɛɪk/ (using phonemic slashes for broad transcription because I have neither the time nor the will to do a narrow transcription, so don't you dare use it as fuel for your rhetoric) with the /s/ in different syllables.

See that is easily treated as phonological, because that does not require some universal treatment of syllabification as phonetic but rather a simple phonological rule that fortis plosives are aspirated when at the start of a stressed or initial syllable... and because in /mɪ.'stɛɪk/ /t/ does not fall at the start of a stressed or initial syllable it is not aspirated while in /'mɪs.tɛɪk/ /t/ does fall at the start of a stressed or initial syllable so it is aspirated.

[KathTheDragon]

Hang on, what exactly are you saying? That somehow it's completely irrelevant that I can hear which syllable the /s/ belongs to because of the allophonic variation in the /t/?

[Travis B.]

Hang on, what exactly are you saying? That somehow it's completely irrelevant that I can hear which syllable the /s/ belongs to because of the allophonic variation in the /t/?

I am saying that you can hear which syllable the /s/ belongs to because you can hear the allophonic variation on the /t/.

[KathTheDragon]

Um, no, I haven't even got around to articulating the t by the time I've said and parsed the s.

[jmcd]

I agree on the split and Kath's analysis. AFAICT, syllabification exists phonetically but the way it's done varies from language to another. Gaelic and Australian languages notably prefer VC syllables to the much more common CV ones.

[Travis B.]

The key thing is that if syllabification were phonetic, it would be expressed the same way in all languages, as things that are phonetic pertain to the actual human vocal apparatus. I think it is quite the assertion to insist that syllables are expressed the same way in all languages - and if they are not expressed the same way in all languages they are necessarily phonological rather than phonetic.

[KathTheDragon]

The key thing is that if syllabification were phonetic, it would be expressed the same way in all languages, as things that are phonetic pertain to the actual human vocal apparatus.

[Citation needed]

[Travis B.]

The key thing is that if syllabification were phonetic, it would be expressed the same way in all languages, as things that are phonetic pertain to the actual human vocal apparatus.

[Citation needed]

Can you make an actual argument rather than hiding behind "citation needed", which implies that you believe your position does not need to be defended but rather should be accepted by default?

And frankly, what are you implying here, that speakers of different languages have different vocal apparatuses? Or are you attempting to redefine phonetic, so that it pertains to something other than that pertaining to the human vocal apparatus?

[KathTheDragon]

I don't understand why on earth things should be utterly universal in order to be a phonetic mechanism. Which is why I want a source that isn't you.

[Travis B.]

I don't understand why on earth things should be utterly universal in order to be a phonetic mechanism. Which is why I want a source that isn't you.

Because why should one believe that speakers of different languages have fundamentally different mouths or brains?

[Pole, the]

The key thing is that if syllabification were phonetic, it would be expressed the same way in all languages, as things that are phonetic pertain to the actual human vocal apparatus.

I don't know about syllabification, but the concept of a division into syllables is more or less universal, to such an extent that when there is a language that seems not to undergo the same rules (i.e. Salishan), they stand out.

I'd risk saying that syllables do exist not only on a phonetic, but also an acoustic level. Take a sample of a spoken text in an unknown language (actually, it's Polish) and run it through a spectrogram.



How many distinct components do you see in that picture (time on the horizontal axis)?
· around 8?
· around 15?
· around 36?

For me it's pretty clear that given almost any audio in almost any language, estimating the number of syllables will be much easier than estimating either the number of phones or the number of words.

[Travis B.]

The problem here is that you might as well be counting syllable nuclei... which is not the same thing as syllabification... as syllabification is about which consonants are associated with which syllable nuclei as onsets or codas not that syllable nuclei exist.

[KathTheDragon]

I don't understand why on earth things should be utterly universal in order to be a phonetic mechanism. Which is why I want a source that isn't you.

Because why should one believe that speakers of different languages have fundamentally different mouths or brains?

Why should one believe that it affects things? Is it really too much to ask for a source? I've already decided that your claims are unlikely, and unless you can produce some credible evidence, I'm unlikely to change my mind. Further rhetoric isn't helping.

Also, it would be best to continue this in the new syllabification thread.