1101: Possible Exceptions to the SSP (s.s.w.6) Dec 14, 2017

Syllables are notoriously hard to define, despite the fact that children can be taught to parse a word into its syllables with only instinct. Indeed, it was said by Ladefoged & Johnson, “[syllables are] a unit of speech for which there is no satisfactory definition. Syllables seem to be necessary units in the mental organization and production of utterances.” Though principles like the MOP and SSP can be trusted as a way to empirically break up a word (or more accurately: a phrase) into syllables, there are some oddities. The complex word 'sixths' [sɪksθs] not only has three consecutive fricatives, and four non-syllabic consonants in succession, but far more importantly, [k] has lower sonority than [s] or [θ], so it would seem like, according to the SSP, [sɪksθs] must have to be 2 syllables. For that matter, this is the case with other words like 'box' [baks] or anything other word such as those that end with a plosive and then quite commonly [s]. However, in words like 'box' and (arguably) 'sixths', the ending is still considered part of the coda, partly because the plosives can be so similar in sonority to the fricative [s] that any differentiation in stress or volume is difficult to notice, particularly at the end of a word. If you want to play around with this, I made a program last year that deals with syllables: http://snap.berkeley.edu/snapsource/snap.html#present:Username=emmettstone&ProjectName=Stone%20Final%20Project

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