syllable structure
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We investigate the temporal and kinematic properties of consonant gemination and heterosyllabic clusters as opposed to singletons and tautosyllabic clusters in Italian. The data show that the singleton versus geminate contrast is conveyed by specific kinematic properties in addition to systematic durational differences in both the consonantal and vocalic intervals; by contrast, tautosyllabic and heterosyllabic clusters differ significantly for the duration of the consonantal interval but do not vary systematically with respect to the vocalic interval and cannot be consistently differentiated at the kinematic level. We conclude that systematic variations in acoustic vowel duration and the kinematics of tongue tip gestures represent the phonetic correlates of the segmental phonological contrast between short and long consonants, rather than of syllable structure. Data are only partly consistent with the predictions of both moraic and gesture-based models of the syllable about the effects of syllable structure on speech production dynamics and call for a more gradient view of syllabification.

The field of L2 phonology did not receive much research compared to the other linguistic domains. To add to the field and expand the current literature, the present paper’s goal was to examine the impact of syllable structure differences between Arabic and English in uttering L2 English consonant clusters. The following research question was aimed to be answered: Do the differences between two languages’ syllable structure cause production difficulties in the consonant cluster to Saudi Arabian learners of English? The subjects of this investigation were L2 English learners from Saudi with intermediate proficiency levels in English. Applying the descriptive correlational type of research model, the results showed that learners’ production is mainly influenced by their native language-specific phonological features. The learners’ production of targeted L2 consonant clusters seemed to mirror their underlying phonological system, and syllables structures were modified to match their native Arabic phonological system as a result of language transfer. These findings should be taken into account by L2 speech educators as such speech difficulty is anticipated.

An important pattern that is based on the sonority relationship is the Sonority Dispersion Principle (SDP) formulated by Clements (1990). This principle can serve as the basis for classifying syllable types in terms of relative complexity. The notion “dispersion in sonority” clearly defined within a demisyllable. According to this principle, the sonority slop from the onset to the syllable nucleus is maximized and from the nucleus to the coda is minimized. The purpose of this paper is to provide some data on the Albanian language by dividing the sounds within the demisyllable, by analyzing the combinations of sounds in the onset and in the coda. According to SDP, in Albanian the optimal syllable structure with 2 elements is C[stop]V, while among the optimal structures with 3 elements, the types C[stop]VC[glide], C[stop]C[liquid]V, C[stop]C[nasal]V and C[fricative]C[liquid]V predominate. The analyzed data are important and serve to deeply recognize the characteristics of phonological system of Albanian and can also serve for its approach to typological level.

The focus of this study is the analysis of Punjabi syllablestructure in the light of Generative Phonology Theory. UnderGenerative Phonology, CV phonology theory is used for the analysis of thePunjabi syllable. CV phonology is a three-tiered model explaining thestructure of the syllable. The data for this study is taken from native Punjabispeakers living in Lahore and its surrounding areas. Results of the studysuggest that Punjabi speakers use four main patterns for Syllableconstruction, namely CV, CVC, V and VC.

Previous findings in the literature point to the influence that speech perception has on word recognition. However, which specific aspects of the first (L1) and second language (L2) mapping play the most important role is still not fully understood. This study explores whether, and if so, how, L1-L2 syllable-structure differences affect word recognition. Spanish- and German-speaking English learners completed an AXB and a word-monitoring task in English that manipulated the presence of a vowel in words with /s/-initial consonant clusters—e.g., especially versus specially. The results show a clear effect of L1 on L2 learners’ perception and word recognition, with the German group outperforming the Spanish one. These results indicate that the similarity in the syllable structure between English and German fosters positive transfer in both perception and word recognition despite the inexact segmental mapping.

The field of L2 phonology did not receive much research compared to the other linguistic domains. To add to the field and expand the current literature, the present paper’s goal was to examine the impact of syllable structure differences between Arabic and English in uttering L2 English consonant clusters. The following research question was aimed to be answered: Do the differences between two languages’ syllable structure cause production difficulties in the consonant cluster to Saudi Arabian learners of English? The subjects of this investigation were L2 English learners from Saudi with intermediate proficiency levels in English. Applying the descriptive correlational type of research model, the results showed that learners’ production is mainly influenced by their native language-specific phonological features. The learners’ production of targeted L2 consonant clusters seemed to mirror their underlying phonological system, and syllables structures were modified to match their native Arabic phonological system as a result of language transfer. These findings should be taken into account by L2 speech educators as such speech difficulty is anticipated.

This study is concerned with discussing the syllable structure or the syllable nature of the bedouin or nomadic north Yemeni Arabic dialect spoken mainly in five governorates namely, Aljawf, Tihamah, Amran, Sa’adah and Ma’rib, in Yemen referred to in the study as Bed-NYAD. The main goal of this paper is to show how many syllables are there in such dialects of the Yemeni Arabic and how they differ from those NYAD.  Data collection was achieved with the help of a digital recorder. Many speakers of Bed-NYAD have been recorded for the sake of proving our claim that Bed-NYAD have different syllable nature from those other Yemeni dialects of Arabic. The finding of the study revealed that Bed-NYAD have five main types CV, CV:, CVC, CVCC and CV:C while NYAD have only three types of syllables CV, CVV, CVC and the semisyllable C.

This study attempts to describe the ability of the English Department students, Faculty of Humanities, Udayana University in pronouncing English final consonant clusters. Consonant clusters are groups of consonants that can occur initia lly (onset) and finally (coda) in the syllable structure. The features of consonant clusters in each language are highly dependent on the language itself. In English, the number of consonants at the beginning of a syllable can be up to three such as: structure /strʌktʃə/, spring /sprIŋ/, while the number of consonants that forms a cluster in the coda can be up to four as in sixths /siksθs/, texts /teksθs/. While, Consonant clusters in Indonesian and Balinese as the mother tongue of students are very limited in number and only exist initially in the words. This difference, obviously, creates problems for students in pronouncing English words containing these consonant clusters The knowledge of the English sound system is taught in the English phonetic and phonemic course in the fifth semester at the English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Udayana University. This study examined the ability to pronounce consonant clusters by the second semester students who have not taken English Phonetic and Phonemic courses to be compared with student s who have taken the course, so that it can be seen to what extent the course can change students’ performance in pronouncing the consonant clusters. This research is descriptive qualitative research, supported by quantitative data. The research population was 20 second semester students and 20 sixth semester students randomly taken. The research instrument was a list of English words containing consonant clusters and questionnaires. The data collection technique was done through recording, and the data were analyzed descriptive qualitatively and presented formally and informally.