A syllable is a single morphological unit of a word that carries a sound--each syllable contains only one vowel sound. The number of syllables in a word can be determined by the number of distinct vowel sounds it carries. Sounding out a word carefully usually allows one to determine the number of vowel sounds heard and therefore the number of syllables.

Remember that in pronunciation, the stress pattern of the word always falls on the syllable containing the long vowel sound.

Rules of syllabication help second language learners to figure out both how to sound out a new word and to figure out what it means, especially when the word is polysyllabic.

Word attack strategies at the level of the syllable depend upon syllabication and morphological word analysis.

It must be understood that some long and complex words in English form almost a complete sentence in themselves--many natural oral phrases are seven words or less in length, and sometimes long words contain almost as many syllables.

Most children learn syllabication phonically and intuitively through sounding out the word in a progressive manner, as demonstrated below. It must b:

1. holophrastic--one word sentence, saying the word, phonological analysis

antidisestablishmentarianism

2. letter by letter, or pattern sounding, taught at the first grade level.

a-n-t-i-d-i-s-e-s-t-a-b-l-i-s-h-m-e-n-t-a-r-i-a-n-i-s-m

3. syllable by syllable, taught in the second grade, morphological analysis

an-ti-dis-es-ta-blish-men-tar-i-an-ism

4. morpho-phonemic grouping, taught in the advanced grades, from third on.

anti-dis-establish-ment-arian-ism

5. prefix-root-suffix analysis

(anti-dis) establish (ment-arian-ism)

While this is a logical or rule-driven form of analysis consisting of pulling the word phonologically and morphologically apart, and then progressively reassembling it in larger and larger units, Children are taught to do this implicitly, and natural primary acquisition suggests that they are learning to do this unconsciously.

Adult language learners may acquire this capacity to intuitively analyze words in English, but they also must employ deliberate rules to help them in the process of new word acquisition.

As in all natural systems, there are many exceptions to the rules below.

Rule 1:

In general, morphological rules of syllabication follow implicit sound patterns of English.

Corollary 1a: In general, implicit sound patterns in English can be figured out by means of applying morphological rules of word analysis.

A few implicit rules have been suggested in the steps of word analysis above:

Rule 2:

All Prefixes and most suffixes usually form their own syllables.

Rule 3:

Most prefixes and many suffixes are monosyllabic, or made of one syllable, but not all of them.

Rule 4:

An exception to rule 1 above is in the case of some suffixes that change a final "y" or a final "e" to an "i" before adding the ending, frequently altering the final "t" and sometimes changing the pattern of syllabic analysis. A few examples might suffice:

simple--simplification

study--studious

study--studied

complacent--complacency

un-ti-dy--un-ti-di-ness

Corollary 4 a

A word ending in a final "y" will not change the y with an infinitive ending "ing"

fly--flying

buy--buying

Another kind of rule that would apply to complex examples above involves consonantal clusters and vowel pairs.

Rule 5:

In general, vowel pairs and consonantal clusters (including digraphs and diphthongs) are not morphologically divided. In other words, they come together as part of the same syllable.

In the example above, the syllable "blish" is noteworthy for containing both a front and final consonantal blend. Consider where to divide some of the following words into syllables:

rhythm, rhyme, sleigh, thatch, stretch

Now consider the following words:

idle, apple, huddle

What rule do they follow?

(Hint: see rule 14 below)

Rule 6:

"long v pattern"

Sometimes, long vowel sounds stand alone as a syllable, whether in front, mid or final positions. These are "open" vowels.

Consider the following:

a-ble

Rule 7:

v-c (v-cc) pattern or closed vowel syllable

ex-act

ac-cent

all-right

ad-journ

In such a pattern, the vowel closed by a consonant is short in sound, and the syllable is always divided after the first consonant, on the case of double consonants, after the second reduplicated consonant, as above.

Rule 8

short initial vowel, multi-syllable (v-c-c-v) pattern

In a multi-syllable words the first short vowel is usually separated from the second vowel by at least two consonants, , and the syllables are usually divided between the consonants.

Rule 9

Open syllable ((v/c-v-c, c-v/c-v-c) patterns

Open syllables always end in a long vowel sound.

Open syllables that end in a single long vowel sound are divided between the first vowel and the following consonant.

o/pen, mu/sic

Rule 10

Closed syllable (c-v-c) pattern

Closed syllables always end in a consonant, and the vowel sound is always short.

Closed syllables that begin and end in a consonant and contain a short vowel sound are always divided after the second consonant:

ren-der, sur-ren-der, com-pla-cent

Rule 11

R-controlled syllable pattern

R-Controlled syllables in which the vowel is shortened in sound by the following "r" are always divided after the "r". Consider the front and final syllables in the following example, the front "e" is long and not controlled by the following "r"

e-ra-di-cat-or

Compare this to the following:

ir-ra-di-a-tor

There is no such thing as an irradiator, but we might coin a new word describing such a thing, and its syllabication would not break any of our rules. Try the following:

ter-min-a-tor

Rule 12

Intial long vowel--Final silent "e" (v-c-v or c-v-c-v) pattern:

A final-silent e always makes the preceding vowel long in sound.

Syllables containing an initial long vowel sound and a final silent-e sound are divided before the initial consonant or consonantal cluster (v-c-v or c-v-c-v pattern):

ate

cake, rake, bite, mite, dude, bade, made

flake, drake, spade, trade, trite

In polysyllabic words the pattern sometimes becomes v-c-v, as in:

le-mon-ade

ter-min-ate

Rule 13

dropped final "e" pattern

In adding suffixes or infinitive "ing" endings to words ending in silent "e", the "e" is sometimes changed or dropped, altering the syllabication pattern of the penultimate syllable. For instance:

trade--tra-ding

ter-min-ate--ter-min-a-tor

Rule 14

Final "le" pattern

If a word ends in "le", then it picks up the preceding consonant:

a-ble, ca-pa-ble, i-dle, stra-dle, la-dle

note that the final "e" is still dropped in the addition of the infinitive suffix "ing"

i-dling, stra-dling, la-dling

Rule 15

Final "y" pluralization pattern and past tense pattern

Words that end in a final "y" usually change the "y" to "i"

before adding the plural suffix "-es" or "-ed"

pas-try---pas-tries

bakery---bakeries

fly---flies

try---tries

try---tried

spy--spied