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  Peter Roach

Sy.llab.i.fi.ca.tion

24/12/2015

3 Comments

 
In the Wikipedia Help page (Help:IPA for English) which serves to explain how WP uses its version of IPA symbols for representing pronunciations there is a large chart which at its bottom right-hand corner has a rather odd section. Superficially, the use of the dot ‘.’ to mark a syllable division is perfectly normal, and we use it in all polysyllabic words in the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary. WP gives an explanatory note which says
 
“Syllables are indicated sparingly, where necessary to avoid confusion, for example to break up sequences      of vowels (Moai) or consonant clusters which an English speaker might misread as a digraph (Vancouveria,   Windhoek).”

In other words, the dot helps the reader interpret the spelling in a way that avoids wrong interpretation of letter-sequences. The transcription of Moai is given a dot to indicate that there is a syllable division after ‘Mo’, and Windhoek has a dot apparently to stop the reader from interpreting ‘dh’ as a single consonant.
​
But these examples only show a need for a syllable division when the word is seen in its spelling form. As soon as one looks at the IPA symbols, the possibility of confusion disappears. When Moai is transcribed as /məʊaɪ/ the pronunciation (assuming it is being read by an English speaker) is quite predictable without the need for a dot. I can’t see how ‘Windhoek’ and ‘Vancouveria’, which are transcribed /ˈvɪnt.hʊk/ and /væn.kuːˈvɪəriə/ in this work, could be pronounced any differently if the dot were removed. The most puzzling is the example of Mikey/Myki, where the writer transcribes the former as /maɪki/ while the latter is given a syllable-boundary dot thus: /maɪ.kiː/. I can’t see what purpose the dot serves, as the boundary is bound to occur in the same place in both words.

NOTE: I have now changed the box marked 'Syllabification', and hope that this has made it better. I can't decide whether to go through WP now to eradicate redundant syllable-boundary dots where they have been put in.

3 Comments
Akito
27/12/2015 02:48:29 pm

Where a weakened /u:/ is immediately followed by a syllable, stressed or not, beginning with a vowel, e.g., "actual, actuality, graduate, graduation", many American dictionaries write a /w/ at the beginning of the second syllable. Many British dictionaries don't. What is going on?

Reply
Peter
27/12/2015 07:12:09 pm

Thanks - I hadn't noticed that way of transcribing weak /u/. I will look to see what I can find out.

Reply
David Marjanović
6/1/2018 01:19:03 pm

Some Americans really do insert [j] and [w] into such vowel clusters ([j] e.g. in <i>science</i>).

Reply



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    A blog that discusses problems in Wikipedia's coverage of Phonetics

    Peter Roach

    Emeritus Professor of Phonetics,
    ​University of Reading, UK

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