Definition:
One or more letters representing a unit of spoken language consisting of a single uninterrupted sound. Adjective: syllabic.
A syllable is made up of either a single vowel sound (as in the pronunciation of oh) or a combination of vowel and consonant(s) (as in no and not).
A syllable that stands alone is called a monosyllable. A word containing two or more syllables is called a polysyllable.
See also:
Etymology:
From the Greek, "combine"Examples and Observations:
- "A word may be pronounced [a] 'syllable at a time,' as in nev-er-the-less, and a good dictionary will determine where these syllabic divisions occur in writing, thus providing information about how a word may be hyphenated. Syllabification is the term which refers to the division of a word into syllables."
(David Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics & Phonetics. Blackwell, 2003) - "Some consonants can be pronounced alone (mmm, zzz), and may or may not be regarded as syllables, but they normally accompany vowels, which tend to occupy the central position in a syllable (the syllabic position), as in pap, pep, pip, pop, pup. Consonants occupy the margins of the syllable, as with p in the examples just given. A vowel in the syllable margin is often referred to as a glide, as in ebb and bay. Syllabic consonants occur in the second syllables of words like middle or midden, replacing a sequence of schwa plus consonant . . .."
(Gerald Knowles and Tom McArthur, The Oxford Companion to the English Language, edited by Tom McArthur. Oxford Univ. Press, 1992) - "[A] common syllable process, especially among the child's first 50 words, is reduplication (syllable repetition). This process can be seen in forms like mama, papa, peepee, and so on. Partial reduplication (the repetition of part of a syllable) may also occur; very often an /i/ is substituted for the final vowel segment, as in mommy and daddy."
(Frank Parker and Kathryn Riley, Linguistics for Non-Linguists, 2nd ed. Allyn and Bacon, 1994) - "Words like matinee and negligee, introduced after 1700, are stressed on the first syllable in British English but on the last in American English."
(Ann-Marie Svensson, "On the Stressing of French Loanwords in English," in New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics, ed. Christian Kay, et al. John Benjamins, 2002) - "A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect. Be gone, odious wasp! You smell of decayed syllables."
(Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth, 1961)
