Re: USAGE: Schwa and syllabification

Mark J. Reed wrote:

>On Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 11:50:13AM -0500, Trebor Jung wrote:
>
>
>>Merhaba!
>>
>>My spelling textbook claims that the second syllable of 'little' has a schwa
>>in it; my immediate reaction was "What? Isn't it [lItl=]?". So now I'm
>>wondering, how do you tell the difference between schwa and syllabification?
>>(So for example is 'mechanic' [m@k&nIk] or [mk=&nIk]??)
>>
>>
>
>There's no such thing as a syllabic 'k' - only continuous sounds can be
>syllabic, which rules out stops.   You have to have some sort of
>sonorant between the m and the k.   Since m is itself a sonorant, you
>can extend it; then you get [m='k&nIk], which sounds like "mmm-kanik".
>But there's no way to extend the k into a syllable.
>
>
[k=] is impossible, yes, but what about [g=].  I can pronounce that with
no difficulty whatsoever.

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