9 Strong and weak syllables

9.1 Strong and w eak

One of the most noticeable features of English pronunciation is that some of its
syllables are strong while many others are weak; this is also true of many other languages,
but it is necessary to study how these weak syllables are pronounced and where they occur
in English. The distribution of strong and weak syllables is a subject that will be met in
several later chapters. For example, we will look later at stress, which is very important
in deciding whether a syllable is strong or weak. Elision is a closely related subject, and in
considering intonation the difference between strong and weak syllables is also important.
Finally, words with “strong forms” and “weak forms” are clearly a related matter. In this
chapter we look at the general nature of weak syllables.
What do we mean by “strong” and “weak”? To begin with, we can look at how we
use these terms to refer to phonetic characteristics of syllables. When we compare weak
syllables with strong syllables, we find the vowel in a weak syllable tends to be shorter,
of lower intensity (loudness) and different in quality. For example, in the word ‘data’
delta the second syllable, which is weak, is shorter than the first, is less loud and has a
vowel that cannot occur in strong syllables. In a word like ‘bottle’ bnt | the weak second
syllable contains no vowel at all, but consists entirely of the consonant 1. We call this a
syllabic consonant.
There are other ways of characterising strong and weak syllables. We could describe
them partly in terms of stress (by saying, for example, that strong syllables are stressed and
weak syllables unstressed) but, until we describe what “stress” means, such a description
would not be very useful. The most important thing to note at present is that any strong
syllable will have as its peak one of the vowel phonemes (or possibly a triphthong) listed
in Chapters 2 and 3, but not a, i, u (the last two are explained in Section 9.3 below). If the
vowel is one of 1, e, ae, a , d , u, then the strong syllable will always have a coda as well. Weak
syllables, on the other hand, as they are defined here, can only have one of a very small
number of possible peaks. At the end of a word, we may have a weak syllable ending with
a vowel (i.e. with no coda):

i) the vowel a (“schwa”);

ii) a close front unrounded vowel in the general area of i:> 1, symbolised i;
iii) a close back rounded vowel in the general area of u:, u, symbolised u.

64
Strong and weak syllables 65

Examples would be:

i) ‘better’ beta
ii) ‘happy’ haepi
iii) ‘thank you’ Gaeijk ju
We also find weak syllables in word-final position with a coda if the vowel is a. For
example:
i) ‘open’ aupan
ii) ‘sharpen’ Jcupan
Inside a word, we can find the above vowels acting as peaks without codas in weak syllables;
for example, look at the second syllable in each of these words:
i) ‘photograph’ fautagraif
ii) ‘radio’ reidiau
iii) ‘influence’ influans
In addition, the vowel i can act as a peak without a coda if the following syllable begins
with a consonant:
iv) ‘architect’ cukitekt
In the rest of this chapter we will look at the different types of weak syllable in more
detail.

9.2 The 9 vow el (“ schwa”) O AU9 (CD 1), Ex 1

The most frequently occurring vowel in English is a, which is always associated with
weak syllables. In quality it is mid (i.e. halfway between close and open) and central (i.e.
halfway between front and back). It is generally described as lax - that is, not articulated
with much energy. Of course, the quality of this vowel is not always the same, but the
variation is not important.
Not all weak syllables contain a, though many do. Learners of English need to learn
where a is appropriate and where it is not. To do this we often have to use information
that traditional phonemic theory would not accept as relevant - we must consider spelling.
The question to ask is: if the speaker were to pronounce a particular weak syllable as if it
were strong instead, which vowel would it be most likely to have, according to the usual
rules of English spelling? Knowing this will not tell us which syllables in a word or utter­
ance should be weak - that is something we look at in later chapters - but it will give us a
rough guide to the correct pronunciation of weak syllables. Let us look at some examples:
i) Spelt with ‘a’; strong pronunciation would have ae
‘attend’ a t e n d ‘character’ k a e ra k ta
‘barracks’ b a era k s
66 English Phonetics and Phonology

ii) Spelt with ‘ar’; strong pronunciation would have a:

‘particular’ patikjab ‘molar’ maula
‘monarchy’ m nnoki
iii) Adjectival endings spelt ‘ate’; strong pronunciation would have ei
‘intimate’ intimat ‘accurate’ aekjarat
‘desolate’ desalat (although there are exceptions to this: ‘private’ is usually
praivit)
iv) Spelt with ‘o’; strong pronunciation would have d or au
‘tomorrow’ tamorau ‘potato’ pateitau
‘carrot’ kaerat
v) Spelt with ‘or’; strong pronunciation would have a:
‘fofget’ faget ‘ambassador1 aembaesada
‘opportunity’ opatfumati
vi) Spelt with ‘e’; strong pronunciation would have e
‘settlement’ setlmant ‘violet’ vaialat
‘postmen’ paustman
vii) Spelt with ‘er’; strong pronunciation would have 3 :
‘pe/haps’ pahaeps ‘stronger* strogga
‘superman’ su:pamaen
viii) Spelt with ‘u’; strong pronunciation would have a
‘autumn’ o:tam ‘support’ sapa:t
‘halibut’ haelibat
ix) Spelt with ‘ough’ (there are many pronunciations for the letter-sequence ‘ough’)
‘thorough’ 0Ara ‘borough’ bAra
x) Spelt with ‘ou’; strong pronunciation might have a u
‘gracious’ greijas ‘callous’ kaelas

9.3 Close fro n t and close back vowels

Two other vowels are commonly found in weak syllables, one close front (in
the general region of i:, 1) and the other close back rounded (in the general region of
u:, u). In strong syllables it is comparatively easy to distinguish i: from 1 or u: from u, but
in weak syllables the difference is not so clear. For example, although it is easy enough to
decide which vowel one hears in ‘beat’ or ‘bit’, it is much less easy to decidewhich vowel
one hears in the second syllable of words such as ‘easy’ or ‘busy’. There are accents of
English (e.g. Welsh accents) in which the second syllable sounds most like the i: in the
first syllable of ‘easy’, and others (e.g. Yorkshire accents) in which it sounds more like the
1 in the first syllable of ‘busy’. In present-day BBC pronunciation, however, the matter is
not so clear. There is uncertainty, too, about the corresponding close back rounded vowels.
If we look at the words ‘good to eat’ and ‘food to eat’, we must ask if the word ‘to’ is
pronounced with the u vowel phoneme o f‘good’ or the u: phoneme o f‘food’. Again, which
vowel comes in ‘to’ in ‘I want to’?
9 Strong and weak syllables 67

One common feature is that the vowels in question are more like i: or u: when
they precede another vowel, less so when they precede a consonant or pause. You should
notice one further thing: with the exception of one or two very artificial examples, there
is really no possibility in these contexts of a phonemic contrast between i: and i, or
between ui and u. Effectively, then, the two distinctions, which undoubtedly exist within
strong syllables, are neutralised in weak syllables of BBC pronunciation. How should we
transcribe the words ‘easy’ and ‘busy’? We will use the close front unrounded case as an
example, since it is more straightforward. The possibilities, using our phoneme symbols,
are the following: \
‘easy’ ‘busy’
i) i:zi: bizi:
ii) i:zi bizi
Few speakers with a BBC accent seem to feel satisfied with any of these transcriptions.
There is a possible solution to this problem, but it goes against standard phoneme theory.
We can symbolise this weak vowel as i - that is, using the symbol for the vowel in ‘beat’ but
without the length mark. Thus:
i:zi bizi
The i vowel is neither the i: o f‘beat’ nor the i o f‘bit’, and is not in contrast with them. We
can set up a corresponding vowel u that is neither the u: o f‘shoe’ nor the u o f‘book’ but
a weak vowel that shares the characteristics of both. If we use i, u in our transcription as
well as i:, i, u:, u, it is no longer a true phonemic transcription in the traditional sense.
However, this need not be too serious an objection, and the fact that native speakers seem
to think that this transcription fits better with their feelings about the language is a good
argument in its favour.
Q AU9 (CD 1), Ex 2
Let us now look at where these vowels are found, beginning with close front
unrounded ones. We find i occurring:
i) In word-final position in words spelt with final ‘y’ or ‘ey’ after one or more
consonant letters (e.g. ‘happy’ haepi, ‘valley’ vaeli) and in morpheme-final
position when such words have suffixes beginning with vowels (e.g. ‘happier’
haspia, ‘easiest’ iiziast, ‘hurrying’ hAriirj).
ii) In a prefix such as those spelt ‘re’, ‘pre’, ‘de’ if it precedes a vowel and is
unstressed (e.g. in ‘react’ riaekt, ‘create’ krieit, ‘deodorant’ diaudarant).
iii) In the suffixes spelt ‘iate’, ‘ious’ when they have two syllables (e.g. in ‘appreciate’
aprirjieit, ‘hilarious’ hilearias).
iv) In the following words when unstressed: ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘we’, me’, ‘be’ and the word
‘the’ when it precedes a vowel.
In most other cases of syllables containing a short close front unrounded vowel we can
assign the vowel to the i phoneme, as in the first syllable o f ‘resist’ rizist, ‘inane’ inein,
68 English Phonetics and Phonology

‘enough’ inAf, the middle syllable of ‘incident’ insidant, ‘orchestra’ oikistra, ‘artichoke’
aititfauk, and the final syllable o f‘swimming’ swimiq, ‘liquid’ likwid, ‘optic’ optik. It can
be seen that this vowel is most often represented in spelling by the letters ‘i’ and ‘e’.
Weak syllables with close back rounded vowels are not so commonly found. We find
u most frequently in the words ‘you’, ‘to’, ‘into’, ‘do’, when they are unstressed and are not
immediately preceding a consonant, and ‘through’, ‘who’ in all positions when they are
unstressed. This vowel is also found before another vowel within a word, as in ‘evacuation’
ivaekjueij'n, ‘influenza’ influenza.

9.4 Syllabic consonants

In the above sections we have looked at vowels in weak syllables. We must also
consider syllables in which no vowel is found. In this case, a consonant, either 1, r or
a nasal, stands as the peak of the syllable instead of the vowel, and we count these as
weak syllables like the vowel examples given earlier in this chapter. It is usual to indicate
that a consonant is syllabic by means of a small vertical mark ( ,) beneath the symbol, for
example ‘cattle’ kaetl.

Syllabic 1 O AU9 (CD 1), Ex 3

Syllabic 1is perhaps the most noticeable example of the English syllabic consonants,
although it would be wrong to expect to find it in all accents. It occurs after another
consonant, and the way it is produced depends to some extent on the nature of that
consonant. If the preceding consonant is alveolar, as in ‘bottle5 botl, ‘muddle’ mAdl,
‘tunnel’ tAnl, the articulatory movement from the preceding consonant to the syllabic
1 is quite simple. The sides of the tongue, which are raised for the preceding consonant,
are lowered to allow air to escape over them (this is called lateral release). The tip and
blade of the tongue do not move until the articulatory contact for the 1 is released. The
1 is a “dark 1” (as explained in Chapter 7). In some accents - particularly London ones,
and “Estuary English” - we often find a close back rounded vowel instead (e.g. ‘bottle’
botu). Where do we find syllabic 1 in the BBC accent? It is useful to look at the spelling
as a guide. The most obvious case is where we have a word ending with one or more
consonant letters followed by ‘le’ (or, in the case of noun plurals or third person singular
verb forms, ‘les’). Examples are:
i) with alveolar consonant preceding
‘cattle’ kaetl ‘bottle’ botl
‘wrestle’ resl ‘muddle’ mAdl
ii) with non-alveolar consonant preceding
‘couple’ kApl ‘trouble’ trAbl
‘struggle’ strAgl ‘knuckle’ nAkl
Such words usually lose their final letter ‘e’when a suffix beginning with a vowel is attached,
but the 1usually remains syllabic. Thus:
9 Strong and weak syllables 69

‘bottle’ - ‘bottling’ botl - botlir)

‘muddle’ - ‘muddling’ m A d l - m A d lir)
‘struggle’ - ‘struggling’ strAgl - strAgjirj
Similar words not derived in this way do not have the syllabic 1 - it has been pointed
out that the two words ‘coddling’ (derived from the verb ‘coddle’) and ‘codling’ (mean­
ing “small cod”, derived by adding the diminutive suffix ‘-ling’ to ‘cod’) show a contrast
between syllabic and non-syllabic 1: ‘coddling’ kDdlir) and ‘codling’ kndlir). In the case
of words such as ‘bottle’, ‘muddle’, ‘struggle’, which are quite common, it would be a
mispronunciation to insert a vowel between the 1 and the preceding consonant in the
accent described here. There are many accents of English which may do this, so that, for
example, ‘cattle’ is pronounced kaetal, but this is rarely the case in BBC pronunciation.
We also find syllabic 1in words spelt, at the end, with one or more consonant letters
followed by ‘al’ or ‘el’, for example:
‘panel’ paenl ‘petal’ petl
‘kernel’ k3 :nl ‘pedal’ pedl
‘parcel’ pa: si ‘papal’ peipl
‘Babel’ beibl ‘ducal’ djuikl
In some less common or more technical words, it is not obligatory to pronounce syllabic
1 and the sequence si may be used instead, although it is less likely: ‘missal’ misl or misal,
‘acquittal’ akwitl or akwital.

Syllabic n O AU9 (CD 1), Ex 4

Of the syllabic nasals, the most frequendy found and the most important is n. When
should it be pronounced? A general rule could be made that weak syllables which are
phonologically composed of a plosive or fricative consonant plus an are uncommon
except in initial position in the words. So we can find words like ‘tonight’ tanait, ‘canary’
kaneari, ‘fanatic’ fanaetik, ‘sonata’ sanaita with a before n, but medially and finally - as in
words like ‘threaten’, ‘threatening’ - we find much more commonly a syllabic n: Gretn,
Gretnir). To pronounce a vowel before the nasal consonant would sound strange (or at
best over-careful) in the BBC accent.
Syllabic n is most common after alveolar plosives and fricatives; in the case of t,
d, s, z followed by n the plosive is nasally released by lowering the soft palate, so that in
the word ‘eaten’ i:tn, for example, the tongue does not move in the tn sequence but the
soft palate is lowered at the end of t so that compressed air escapes through the nose.
We do not usually find n after 1, tj, d3, so that for example ‘sullen’ must be pronounced
SAlan, ‘Christian’ as kristfan (though this word may be pronounced with t followed by i
or j) and ‘pigeon’ as pid 3an.
Syllabic n after non-alveolar consonants is not so widespread. In words where the
syllable following a velar consonant is spelt ‘an’ or ‘on’ (e.g. ‘toboggan’, ‘wagon’) it is rarely
heard, the more usual pronunciation being tabngan, waegan. After bilabial consonants, in
70 English Phonetics and Phonology

words like ‘happen’, ‘happening’, ‘ribbon’we can consider it equally acceptable to pronounce
them with syllabic n (haepn, haepmr), ribn) or with an (haepan, haepanir), riban). In a
similar way, after velar consonants in words like ‘thicken’, ‘waken’, syllabic n is possible but
an is also acceptable.
After f, v, syllabic n is more common than 9n (except, as with the other cases
described, in word-initial syllables). Thus ‘seven’, ‘heaven’, ‘often’ are more usually sevn,
hevn, ofn than sevan, hevan, of an.
In all the examples given so far the syllabic n has been following another consonant;
sometimes it is possible for another consonant to precede that consonant, but in this case
a syllabic consonant is less likely to occur. If n is preceded by 1and a plosive, as in ‘Wilton’,
the pronunciation wiltn is possible, but wilt an is also found regularly. If s precedes, as in
‘Boston’, a final syllabic nasal is less frequent, while clusters formed by nasal + plosive +
syllabic nasal are very unusual: thus ‘Minton’, ‘lantern’, ‘London’, ‘abandon’ will normally
have a in the last syllable and be pronounced mint an, laentan, Lvndan, abaendan. Other
nasals also discourage a following plosive plus syllabic nasal, so that for example ‘Camden’
is normally pronounced kaemdan.

Syllabic m ,r)
We will not spend much time on the syllabic pronunciation of these consonants.
Both can occur as syllabic, but only as a result of processes such as assimilation and elision
that are introduced later. We find them sometimes in words like ‘happen’, which can be
pronounced haepm, though haepn and haepan are equally acceptable, and ‘uppermost’,
which could be pronounced as Apmaust, though Apamaust would be more usual.
Examples of possible syllabic velar nasals would be ‘thicken’ 0ikr) (where Gikan and 0ikn
are also possible), and ‘broken key’ braukq kii, where the nasal consonant occurs between
velar consonants (n or an could be substituted for rj).

Syllabic r
In many accents of the type called “rhotic” (introduced in Chapter 7), such as most
American accents, syllabic r is very common. The word ‘particular’, for example, would
probably be pronounced prt ik j air in careful speech by most Americans, while BBC speakers
would pronounce this word patikjala. Syllabic r is less common in BBC pronunciation:
it is found in weak syllables such as the second syllable of ‘preference’ prefrans. In most
cases where it occurs there are acceptable alternative pronunciations without the syllabic
consonant.
There are a few pairs of words (minimal pairs) in which a difference in meaning appears
to depend on whether a particular r is syllabic or not, for example:
‘hungry’ hAqgri ‘Hungary’ hAqgri
But we find no case of syllabic r where it would not be possible to substitute either non-
syllabic r or ar; in the example above, ‘Hungary’ could equally well be pronounced
hArjgari.
9 Strong and weak syllables 71

Combinations o f syllabic consonants

It is not unusual to find two syllabic consonants together. Examples are: ‘national’naejnl,
‘literal’ litrl, ‘visionary’ v i3nri, ‘veteran’ vetrn. It is important to remember that it is often
not possible to say with certainty whether a speaker has pronounced a syllabic consonant, a
non-syllabic consonant or a non-syllabic consonant plus a. For example, the word ‘veteran’
given above could be pronounced in other ways than vetrn. A BBC speaker might instead
say vet ran, vet orn or vetaran. The transcription makes it look as if the difference between
these words is clear; it is not. In examining colloquial English it is often more or less a mat­
ter of arbitrary choice how one transcribes such a word. Transcription has the unfortunate
tendency to make things seem simpler and more clear-cut than they really are.

Notes on problem s and fu rth e r reading

9.1 I have at this point tried to bring in some preliminary notions of stress and prominence
without giving a full explanation. By this stage in the course it is important to be getting
familiar with the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables, and the nature of
the “schwa” vowel. However, the subject of stress is such a large one that I have felt it best
to leave its main treatment until later. On the subject of schwa, see Ashby (2005: p. 29);
Cruttenden (2008: Section 8.9. 12).

9.2 The introduction of i and u is a relatively recent idea, but it is now widely accepted
as a convention in influential dictionaries such as the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary
(Wells, 2008), the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (Jones, eds. Roach et al,
2006) and the Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation (Upton et al, 2001). Since I mention
native speakers’ feelings in this connection, and since I am elsewhere rather sceptical about
appeals to native speakers’ feelings, I had better explain that in this case my evidence comes
from the native speakers of English I have taught in practical classes on transcription over
many years. A substantial number of these students have either been speakers with BBC
pronunciation or had accents only slightly different from it, and their usual reaction to
being told to use i for the vowel at the end o f‘easy’, ‘busy’ has been one of puzzlement and
frustration; like them, I cannot equate this vowel with the vowel of ‘bit’. I am, however,
reluctant to use i:> which suggests a stronger vowel than should be pronounced (like the
final vowel in ‘evacuee’, ‘Tennessee’). I must emphasise that the vowels i, u are not to be
included in the set of English phonemes but are simply additional symbols to make the
writing and reading of transcription easier. The Introduction to the Cambridge English
Pronouncing Dictionary (Jones, eds. Roach et al., 2006) discusses some of the issues
involved in syllabic consonants and weak syllables: see section 2.10 and p. 492.

Notes fo r teachers

Introduction of the “schwa” vowel has been deliberately delayed until this chapter, since
I wanted it to be presented in the context of weak syllables in general. Since students
72 English Phonetics and Phonology

should by now be comparatively well informed about basic segmental phonetics, it is

very important that their production and recognition of this vowel should be good before
moving on to the following chapters.
This chapter is in a sense a crucial point in the course. Although the segmental
material of the preceding chapters is important as a foundation, the strong/weak syllable
distinction and the overall prosodic characteristics of words and sentences are essential
to intelligibility. Most of the remaining chapters of the course are concerned with such
matters.

W ritte n exercise

The following sentences have been partially transcribed, but the vowels have been left
blank. Fill in the vowels, taking care to identify which vowels are weak; put no vowel at
all if you think a syllabic consonant is appropriate, but put a syllabic mark beneath the
syllabic consonant
1 A particular problem of the boat was a leak
p t kj 1 pr bl mv d b t wz 1 k
2 Opening the bottle presented no difficulty
p n r) 5 b t l p r z n t d n d f k l t
3 There is no alternative to the government’s proposal
6 rzn Itn tv td g v nm nt spr p zl
4 We ought to make a collection to cover the expenses
w ttm k k l k / n t k v d ksp ns z
5 Finally they arrived at a harbour at the edge of the mountains
f n 1 5 r v d t h b r t d d 3 v d m n t n z