| many English syllables are | weak |
| stress | a major factor in determining whether a syllable will be strong or weak |
| any strong syllable will have as its peak | one of the vowel phonemes (or possibly a triphthong), but not ə |
| weak syllables can only have four types of peak a), b) | a) the vowel ə, b) a close front unrounded vowel in the general area if i: and I |
| weak syllables can only have four types of peak c), d) | c) a close back rounded vowel in the general area of u: and ʊ, d) a syllabic consonant |
| the vowel in a weak syllable tends to be | shorter, of lower intensity and different in quality; father - the 2 weak,shorter, less loud than 1 |
| a syllabic consonant | bottle; is a consonant which either forms a syllable on its own, or is the nucleus of a syllable |
| ə is always associated with | weak syllables |
| ə in quality | mid, central, described as lax (not articulated with much energy) |
| the quality of this vowel is not | always the same, but the variation is not important |
| not all .... contain ə | weak syllables |
| spelt with ‘a’ | strong pronunciation would have ӕ; attend |
| spelt with ‘ar’ | strong pronunciation would have ɑ:; particular |
| adjectival endings spelt ‘ate’ | strong pronunciation – eI; intimate |
| spelt with ‘o’ | strong pronunciation – ɒ; tomorrow |
| spelt with ‘or’ | strong pronunciation - ɔ:; forget |
| spelt with ‘e’ | strong pronunciation – e; settlement |
| spelt with ‘er’ | strong pronunciation - ʒ:; perhaps |
| spelt with ‘u’ | strong pronunciation - ʌ; Autumn |
| spelt with ‘ough’ | thorough |
| spelt with ‘ous’ | gracious |
| commonly found in weak syllables are | close front and close back vowels |
| close front vowel | in the general region of i: and I |
| close back rounded vowel | in the general region of u: and ʊ |
| we find i occurring a) | a) in word-final position in words with final ‘y’, ‘ey'; happier |
| we find i occurring b) | b) in a prefix ‘re’, ‘pre’, ‘de’ if it precedes a vowel and is unstressed; react |
| we find i occurring c) | in the suffixes ‘iate’, ‘ious’ when they have two syllables; appreciate |
| we find i occurring d) | in unstressed: ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘we’, ‘me’, ‘be’ and ‘the’ when it precedes a vowel |
| weak syllables with close back rounded vowels | u in 'you', 'to', 'into', 'do'; evacuation |
| syllabic l | the most noticeable example of the English syllabic consonant |
| syllabic l occurs | after another consonant, and the way it is produced depends to some extent to the nature of that con |
| if the preceding consonant is alveolar | the articulatory movement from the preceding consonant to the syllabic l is guite simple; bottle |
| lateral release | sides of tongue, which are raised for the preceding consonant, are loweredToAllowAirToEscapeOverThem |
| we found syllabic l (1) | a word ending with one or more consonant letters followed by ‘le’ |
| we found syllabic l (2) | with alveolar consonant preceding (cattle); with non-alveolar consonant preceding (couple) |
| ‘bottle’ – ‘bottling’ | such words usually lose their final letter ‘e’ when a suffix beginning with a vowel is attached |
| similar words not derived in this way do not have ... | the syllabic l |
| weak syllables + ən ... | are uncommon except in initial position in the words; tonight |
| medially and finally we find much more commonly a syllabic n in words... | threaten, threatening |
| syllabic n is most common after ... | alveolar plosives and fricatives |
| in the case of t and d followed by n ... | the plosive is nasally released by lowering the soft palate |
| after r or v, syllabic n | more common than ən (except in word-initial syllables); seven sevn |
| after bilabial consonants syllabic n | we can consider it equally acceptable to pronounce them with syllabic n or with ən ; happen |
| syllabic n after non-alveolar consonants | in words where the syllable following a velar consonant is spelt ‘an’ or ‘on’ (‘toboggan’, ‘wagon’) |
| m, ŋ | both occur as syllabic, but only as a result of assimilation and elision; happen |
| where non-syllabic r is also acceptable | history; more than one consonant precedes the weak syllable in question |
| where ər is also acceptable | only one consonant preceding; buttering |
| minimal pairs | in which a difference in meaning appears to depend on whether a particular r is syllabic or not |
| combinations of syllabic consonants | national; literal; vistionary; vistionary’ |
