Syllable, Structure.

Introduction.

A while ago i considered creating a computer game for people who stutter or wish to perfect articulation.

It's name is 'Nucleus Coda: in search for the Onset'.

It's a lot of work, i lack understanding & experience, and while i am at least great computer programmer & a beginner artist - domain knowledge i lack.

i don't have time, however, to catch up with theory & practice, to program the game's mechanisms, to develop Artificial Intelligence needed for voice recognition, to develop the other art-resources neccessary as well.


Syllable.

A syllable is a unit of sound composed of a central peak of sonority (usually a vowel), and the consonants that cluster around this central peak.

Syllable structure, which is the combination of allowable segments and typical sound sequences, is language specific.


Here is a diagram of a syllable:




Onset, Nucleus & Coda.

A syllable has as many as three parts: onset, nucleus, and coda.

The onset and the coda are consonants, or consonant clusters, that appear at the beginning and the end of the syllable respectively.

The nucleus forms the the core of the syllable; it is most often a vowel, or a combination of vowels - but there are many exceptions to that.

If you examine enough languages you can find almost every kind phone used as a syllable nucleus.

In the word 'far', [f] is the syllable onset, [a] is the nucleus, and [r] the coda.

If a coda is present in a syllable, the nucleus and the coda form a single unit called a rhyme; otherwise the nucleus makes up the rhyme by itself.

Looking at 'far' again, [ar] forms the rhyme.

A syllable does not necessarily have to have an onset or a coda - depending on the language - but a nucleus is always present.


Consonants.

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract.

Examples are:
- [p], pronounced with the lips;
- [t], pronounced with the front of the tongue;
- [k], pronounced with the back of the tongue;
- [h], pronounced in the throat;
- [f] and [s], pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives);
- and [m] and [n], which have air flowing through the nose (nasals).

Contrasting with consonants are vowels.


Vovels.

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, with two complementary definitions.

In the phonetic definition, a vowel is a sound, such as the English 'ah' /ɑː/ or 'oh' /oʊ/, produced with an open vocal tract;

it is median (the air escapes along the middle of the tongue), oral (at least some of the airflow must escape through the mouth), frictionless and continuant.

There is no significant build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis.

This contrasts with consonants, such as the English 'sh' [ʃ], which have a constriction or closure at some point along the vocal tract.

In the other, phonological definition, a vowel is defined as syllabic, the sound that forms the peak of a syllable.