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English syllable structure (was, for some reason: Re: Llirine: How to creat a language)

From:Muke Tever <alrivera@...>
Date:Tuesday, December 4, 2001, 2:46
From: "Andreas Johansson" <and_yo@...>
> Syllables? Assuming twenty possible onsets, ten > possible centers (vowels) and twenty possible codas (all underestimates of > the English inventories), we land on 4000 possible syllables.
Well... A [Gen-Am] English syllable can start with: (zero) p b t d tS dZ k g m n r f v T s z S h w j l [and, probably not productively, D Z x] gl gr kl kr Sr dr Tr fr fl br bl tw dw Tw [hw for some people too, and gw, generally only in names] kw kr skw skr tr str pr pl spr spl sk st sl sn sf sp sm sw [also: hj kj gj fj vj pj bj mj before u] which is... 54 that can occur freely. Vowels can be, I think, i I u U e E o A { V which is... ten. Codas can be, heek... p b t d tS dZ k g m n r f v T s z S Z N l r [again with the D Z x, also w j restrictedly] lb lm lf lp lk lt ld ls mp sk st sp nk nt nks nts nd ns ltS ldZ ntS ndZ kT ksT nT tT dT lT nT fT pT mT mpf [with the plural/present morpheme s/z, the past morpheme t/d, and the archaic st/zd addable to most of these] I know there's more (offhand I can think of: lS ('welsh') nS ('mensch') Nst ('angst') N). About 54, 55... (This is not counting most /r/..) But as it stands that's at least 30,000 possible English syllables, from "uh" to "straurmphst". (Ack! I didn't even count diphthongs!) *Muke!

Replies

Dirk Elzinga <dirk_elzinga@...>English syllable structure
Cheng Zhong Su <suchengzhong@...>
Dan Jones <dan@...>