The syllable in generative phonology The 1950s and 1960s saw a new approach to language study: generative linguistics,

associated primarily with Noam Chomsky and his contemporaries. This ultimately became the current 'mainstream' of Western linguistic research, leading to theories of both syntax and phonology. Within generative theory, prosodic structure (levels of phonological information, from the segment up to the syllable and the intonation pattern imposed on an utterance) is formed according to the principles of 'Universal Grammar' (UG), which underlie all languages.[14] A speaker of a language possesses some kind of faculty which explicitly sets out what kinds of syllables, patterns of segments and other levels of phonological information are possible, while ruling out those which are not. This, crucially, unfolds in neurologically typical children without instruction, and little influence from the environment around them. For example, children typically produce syllables of consonantvowel (CV) sequences from their earliest productions. However, this presence of the syllable in first language acquisition did not immediately lead to its recognition as a crucial unit of phonological theory. The syllable as a segmental rule By the time of Chomsky and Halles Sound Pattern of English[15] (henceforth 'SPE'), the syllable had been abandoned as a formal phonological unit.[16] In SPE the syllable was not explicitly referred to except as the segmental rather than prosodic feature [ syllabic], attached to vowels and syllabic consonants.[17] However, though there was nothing in SPEbetween the word and the segment, one could infer the existence of the syllable from rules which seemed to take the syllable as their domain of application.[18] For example, a rule inSPE which seems to apply both to word-edges and adjacent consonants becomes suddenly transparent if it is assumed that it activates at the edge of the syllable.[19] An example of this is glottalisation in English, where the /t/ in but, butter and bottle may be glottalised by many speakers. Assuming this occurs at the right edge of the syllable covers what might otherwise be regarded as three separate rules. In the 1970s, the syllable was reintroduced to generative linguistics as a rule inserting boundaries between segments.[20] The syllable had returned as a formal linguistic reality, but remained tied to the segmental level. The syllable as a suprasegmental By the 1980s, the theory that the syllable was confined to the segmental tier - i.e. that certain segments such as vowels could be inherently syllabic - had been eroded. The syllable came to be seen as a separate 'suprasegmental' unit of organisation, i.e. segments could be grouped inside a syllable but not form the structure of the syllable itself.[21] While one avenue of inquiry questioned whether the syllable was a true linguistic universal at all,[22] the majority of phonologists found the syllable invaluable in describing and predicting data. Assuming the syllable to both exist and be a suprasegmental unit allowed for a more productive description of permissible segmental ordering.[23] Challenges to the 'classic' model

Underlyingly, monosyllabic words with a final consonant actually consist of two syllables in government phonology. The traditional model of a syllable as onset, nucleus and coda united in one unit has been challenged in various ways, particularly since the 1990s. Some approaches assume the 'classic' model but modify it; for example, by linking initial and final consonants directly to the syllable itself rather than subsuming them under the intermediate onset and coda constituents.[24] In this version, the syllable consists of a nucleus and optional final consonants within the rhyme, with any pre-nucleic consonants on the same level as the rhyme. The theory of government phonology (GP) is still more radical[25]. This view denies that syllables exist as organising units in their own right; appealing to an 'onset-rhyme constituent' is enough. In other words, phonological rules that supposedly apply to syllables can be better-described as applying to onsets, rhymes or both. Furthermore, final consonants are analysed not as part of the rhyme and/or coda, but as onsets - of 'covert' final syllables. Compare the GP approach to syllabifying the words 'cat' with the traditional model (right).

Some words that appear to differ in number of syllables are actually the same under the surface in government phonology. GP does not completely abolish rhymal consonants: in cases where a sequence of final consonants could not form a normal onset - such as in hand, where *[nd-] could not begin an English syllable - the consonant cluster is broken up as it would be if the two consonants occurred in different syllables: in panda the [n] and [d] occupy separate syllables, so this must also apply to final [-nd] sequences. Note that this means there is no prosodic difference between hand and handy; the addition of -y requires only that the vowel be 'plugged' into the existing syllable structure, rather than requiring a resyllabification rule to produce a new structure. The cost of extra 'covert' structure of phonetically unrealised syllables is met through not having to invoke rules of syllabification when an ending is affixed. This means, of course, that the underlying syllable structure may contrast sharply with speakers' intuitions about how many syllables a word has. Footnotes 1. All languages require onsets to be the initial constituent of the syllable; this is regardless of whether the language is written left to right, right to left or top to bottom. 2. Spoken in Nepal. 3. Although German has many words that begin with a vowel, phonetically a glottal stop is inserted to comply with this obligatory onset rule, except in cases where another consonant is resyllabified to occupy another's onset position as in, hab ich 'have I'. 4. In some models, all varieties of Chinese are considered to have obligatory onsets; see Duanmu (2007). 5. The spelling of button misleadingly implies that for most speakers there are two vowels in the word. 6. Languages allow more codas word-internally than word-finally. Both Japanese and Italian allow a full range of consonants inside the word, e.g. Italianditta 'office' and Japanese datte 'even (if)', though in the latter case they must be part of a long consonant (a geminate). Italian word-final codas are restricted to grammatical function words such as nel 'in the' and loanwords. 7. Some accounts place [s] outside the onset in words such as spread, because it syllabifies differently to 'true' onset consonants; cf. aspect and appraisal. 8. Pike & Pike (1947); Hockett (1955: 150-151). 9. Hockett (1958: 64). 10. Stetson (1951), as reported in Bell & Hooper (1978: 18).

11. Fujimura & Erickson (1997: 99). 12. Laver (1994: 114). 13. A rule which is not necessitated by the facts of phonetics is not "phonetically natural" (Bell & Hooper, 1978: 7). 14. Chomsky (1965). 15. Chomsky & Halle (1968). 16. Kohler (1966). 17. Bell and Hooper (1978: 5). 18. Fischer-Jrgensen (1975: 207); van der Hulst and Ritter (1999: 19). 19. Blevins (1995: 209). 20. Hooper (1972). 21. Selkirk (1984a: 22). 22. Hyman (1983). 23. Selkirk (1984b). 24. Blevins (1995: 216). 25. van der Hulst & Ritter 1999