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In the case of a word such as hurry, the division may be /hʌr.i/ or /hʌ.ri/, neither of which seems a satisfactory analysis for a non-rhotic accent such as RP (British English): /hʌr.i/ results in a syllable-final /r/, which is not normally found, while /hʌ.ri/ gives a syllable-final short stressed vowel, which is also non-occurring.
English written syllabification therefore deals with a concept of "syllable" that does not correspond to the linguistic concept of a phonological (as opposed to morphological) unit. As a result, even most native English speakers are unable to syllabify words according to established rules without consulting a dictionary or using a word processor.
The following table shows the 24 consonant phonemes found in most dialects of English, plus /x/, whose distribution is more limited. Fortis consonants are always voiceless, aspirated in syllable onset (except in clusters beginning with /s/ or /ʃ/), and sometimes also glottalized to an extent in syllable coda (most likely to occur with /t/, see T-glottalization), while lenis consonants are ...
The same applies to / ɪər /, / ʊər / and / ɛər /, which are realized as centering diphthongs or long monophthongs in non-rhotic varieties of English, but as vowel+consonant sequences (alternative analysis: centering diphthongs with a rhotacized offset) in rhotic English. The term checked vowel is also useful in the description of English ...
Trisyllabic laxing, or trisyllabic shortening, is any of three processes in English in which tense vowels (long vowels or diphthongs) become lax (short monophthongs) if they are followed by two or more syllables, at least the first of which is unstressed, for example, grateful vs gratitude, profound vs profundity.
Most of the pairs listed below are closely related: for example, "absent" as a noun meaning "missing", and as a verb meaning "to make oneself missing". There are also many cases in which homographs are of an entirely separate origin, or whose meanings have diverged to the point that present-day speakers have little historical understanding: for ...
For example, the English suffix -s is pronounced [s] when it follows a voiceless phoneme (cats), and [z] when it follows a voiced phoneme (dogs). [1] This type of assimilation is called progressive , where the second consonant assimilates to the first; regressive assimilation goes in the opposite direction, as can be seen in have to [hæftə] .
In English, for example, the groups /spl/ and /ts/ are consonant clusters in the word splits. In the education field it is variously called a consonant cluster or a consonant blend. [1] [2] Some linguists [who?] argue that the term can be properly applied only to those consonant clusters that occur within one syllable. Others claim that the ...