3 ms·

You're conflating syllabic consonants and vowels. Phonetically, R and L are always consonants. The distinction between consonants and vowels is not in whether t

by hnbad 5y ago

You're conflating syllabic consonants and vowels. Phonetically, R and L are always consonants. The distinction between consonants and vowels is not in whether they can appear by themselves as syllables. For example, in many English dialects "bottle" has two syllables and the second syllable is just an "L". But that L is still a consonant.

azangru 5y ago
How is it known, about bottle, whether it has one or two syllables? According to the sonority sequencing principle, /l/ has a higher sonority than /t/ or a glottal stop; so one would expect bottle to always have two syllables (this is reflected in transcriptions provided by Merriam-Webster's or Cambridge Advanced Learner's). When would this not be the case?
- hnbad 5y ago
  It depends on the dialect but in many cases the /l/ is syllabic. The difference is mostly in whether the second syllable is just the /l/ or also contains a schwa. I don't think there are any dialects where the word is monosyllabic as that would probably require making the /t/ completely silent (not just a glottal stop).
adrian_b 5y ago
You are right only if you redefine the word "consonant" to mean a name attached permanently to certain sounds based on their kind of articulation, regardless how they are used in a word. Such terms are e.g. "obstruents", "sonorants", "nasals" etc. The word "consonant" (like all Latin grammatical terms it was a calque after a Greek term) was defined more than 2000 years ago as "con-" + "-sonant", i.e. a sound pronounced together with another in a syllable and not pronounced independently, like a vowel. The original word has nothing to do with the manner of articulation of the sound, but only about how it is combined in speech. The terms "semivowel" or "semiconsonant" that are sometimes used, are not helpful at all, because in a given word any sound is either used as a vowel or as a consonant and not as something between them. Some sounds are always used as vowels, some are always used as consonants and others are sometimes used as vowels and sometimes used as consonants. The partitioning of the sounds between these 3 classes varies from language to language and this fact needs to be understood by whoever wants to understand the pronunciation of foreign languages. It is necessary to have 2 terms for the 2 kinds of roles that sounds may have in a syllable. "Consonant" has the right original definition and etymology for one of the roles and there is no better alternative and no reason to replace it. It is much less established what "vowel" should mean, because it is used both in the traditional sense for the sounds that are the syllabic peak of sonority and for a particular class of sounds based on the articulation type, i.e. for those where the vocal tract is less constricted than for other classes of sounds. If "vowel" is assigned to refer strictly to the articulation kind, then the only existing term that can be used for the role in a syllable would be "syllabic". With this term choice, one can say that "I" is a vowel that is syllabic in "pin" and consonant in "yard" and that "N" is a nasal sonorant that is syllabic in "button" and consonant in "nut". However, if "vowel" is restricted as a name for a class of sounds, then it is not more surprising to have human names without vowels then e.g. having human names without dental obstruents or human names without any other particular kind of sounds. The supposedly surprising fact was the existence of human names without syllabic sounds. Had that been true, the names would have been unpronounceable. So "vowel" in the thread title had to mean "syllabic" for the title to make sense. In fact there is no surprise except for English speakers, because in other languages there are types of sounds that may be syllabic even if they cannot be syllabic in English.

by hnbad 5y ago

azangru 5y ago

How is it known, about bottle, whether it has one or two syllables? According to the sonority sequencing principle, /l/ has a higher sonority than /t/ or a glottal stop; so one would expect bottle to always have two syllables (this is reflected in transcriptions provided by Merriam-Webster's or Cambridge Advanced Learner's). When would this not be the case?

hnbad 5y ago
It depends on the dialect but in many cases the /l/ is syllabic. The difference is mostly in whether the second syllable is just the /l/ or also contains a schwa. I don't think there are any dialects where the word is monosyllabic as that would probably require making the /t/ completely silent (not just a glottal stop).

adrian_b 5y ago

You are right only if you redefine the word "consonant" to mean a name attached permanently to certain sounds based on their kind of articulation, regardless how they are used in a word. Such terms are e.g. "obstruents", "sonorants", "nasals" etc. The word "consonant" (like all Latin grammatical terms it was a calque after a Greek term) was defined more than 2000 years ago as "con-" + "-sonant", i.e. a sound pronounced together with another in a syllable and not pronounced independently, like a vowel. The original word has nothing to do with the manner of articulation of the sound, but only about how it is combined in speech. The terms "semivowel" or "semiconsonant" that are sometimes used, are not helpful at all, because in a given word any sound is either used as a vowel or as a consonant and not as something between them. Some sounds are always used as vowels, some are always used as consonants and others are sometimes used as vowels and sometimes used as consonants. The partitioning of the sounds between these 3 classes varies from language to language and this fact needs to be understood by whoever wants to understand the pronunciation of foreign languages. It is necessary to have 2 terms for the 2 kinds of roles that sounds may have in a syllable. "Consonant" has the right original definition and etymology for one of the roles and there is no better alternative and no reason to replace it. It is much less established what "vowel" should mean, because it is used both in the traditional sense for the sounds that are the syllabic peak of sonority and for a particular class of sounds based on the articulation type, i.e. for those where the vocal tract is less constricted than for other classes of sounds. If "vowel" is assigned to refer strictly to the articulation kind, then the only existing term that can be used for the role in a syllable would be "syllabic". With this term choice, one can say that "I" is a vowel that is syllabic in "pin" and consonant in "yard" and that "N" is a nasal sonorant that is syllabic in "button" and consonant in "nut". However, if "vowel" is restricted as a name for a class of sounds, then it is not more surprising to have human names without vowels then e.g. having human names without dental obstruents or human names without any other particular kind of sounds. The supposedly surprising fact was the existence of human names without syllabic sounds. Had that been true, the names would have been unpronounceable. So "vowel" in the thread title had to mean "syllabic" for the title to make sense. In fact there is no surprise except for English speakers, because in other languages there are types of sounds that may be syllabic even if they cannot be syllabic in English.