Re: English syllable structure

> In a later post, Cheng Zhong claimed that since English have about
twenty
> consonants and twenty vowels, it follows that it has 400 phonetic
types -
> he seems to be of the opinion that everything really is CV syllables
> (which'd make "scratched" a word of five syllables or so).
My Jeyn script that I invented (html lost in a pc crash alas) attempted to
codify English syllables. Essentially, each glyph constituted a valid
consonant cluster or a valid vowel cluster as defined within English
phonosyntactics. English is essentially (C)C(C)V(V)(V)(C)(C)(C) in
syllable structure. But there are more restrictions.


C1: s, S (voiced to match C2)

C2: any except N

C3: w, l, r, y

Vowels: There are essentially 20-25 different vowels in English, depending
on dialect, counting diphtongs and triphthongs as well.

C4: w, l, r, y, [nasal]

C5: any except h

C6: s, t (voiced to match C5)

There are numerous restrictions on what exactly is valid (/tl/ is right
out forex), and doubtless there are some things not adequately covered by
this summary, but this covers nearly every case.

--
Fabian
Teach a man what to think, and he'll think as long as you watch him. Teach
a man how to think, and he'll think you're playing mind games.

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