> Alexandre:
>
> Muke already mentioned the importance of syllables in determining
> stress patterns. In addition, many phonological alternations can be
> best understood if syllable structure is assumed. An example from
> English is the difference between light and dark (velarized) /l/.
> Roughly, dark /l/ occurs in syllable codas; light /l/ occurs elsewhere.
> (The whole story is more complicated than that, but this generalization
> is essentially correct.) Another example comes from non-rhotic
> varieties of English, where /r/ is deleted in coda position. Both of
> these generalizations could be stated without appealing to syllables
> and their structure, but at a cost; they become cumbersome to express
> and involve disjunctive environments (i.e., "either before a consonant
> *or* at the end of a word"), which is often a sign that a
> generalization has been missed.
>
> There is one offshoot of generative phonology (Government Phonology)
> which makes use of onsets and rimes without the additional claim that
> these are coordinated into syllables. It seems to work fairly well.
>
> Dirk
>
> On Tuesday, February 17, 2004, at 09:20 PM, Alexandre Lang wrote:
>
> > are syllables really important in a language except for poetry?
> > --
> > Alexandre Lang
> > allexpro@eml.cc
> >
> > --
> >
http://www.fastmail.fm - Accessible with your email software
> > or over the web
> >
> >
> --
> Dirk Elzinga
> Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu
>
> "I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
> its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie