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

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!

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