Syllable

Syllable: definition

Before we dive into the intricacies of syllables, let's begin with our syllable definition. You might already have a good idea of what a syllable is but just in case:

To illustrate this, here are some brief examples of what a syllable can look like:

• The indefinite article "a" is a syllable (one vowel sound, with no consonants).
• The word "oven" has two syllables because it has two vowel sounds – "ov" /-ʌv/ + "en" /-ən/ (each of these syllables includes a vowel sound and a consonant).
• Many words consist of only one syllable, such as "run," "fruit," "bath," and "large." Each of these comprises a combination of one vowel sound and various consonants.

Fig 1. Whenever we speak, we use syllables.

Types of syllables in English

Since you're an English Language student, we'll be focusing on the types of syllables in English rather than looking at syllables on a more global level.

There are six key types of syllables in English:

• Closed syllable: syllables that end in a consonant and have a short vowel sound (e.g., In "picture," the first syllable, "pic" /pɪk/ ends in a consonant, and the /ɪ/ sound is short).

• Open syllable: syllables that end in a vowel and have a long vowel sound (e.g., In "zero," the last syllable "ro" /roʊ/ ends with the vowel sound /oʊ/, which is long).

• Vowel-consonant-e syllable: syllables that end with a long vowel, a consonant, and a silent -e (e.g., "Fate" is a one-syllable word which ends with a long -a /eɪ/, a consonant (t), and a silent -e).

• Diphthong (vowel team) syllable: syllables that include two consecutive vowels making a singular sound (e.g., in "shouting," the first syllable "shout" (ʃaʊt) includes an -o and a -u together that makes one sound - the diphthong /aʊ/).

• R-controlled syllable: syllables that end in at least one vowel followed by -r (e.g., In the name Peter, the end syllable "er" /ər/ consists of an -e followed by an -r.)

• Consonant-le syllable: syllables that end with a consonant followed by -le (e.g., In "syllable," the last syllable "ble" /bəl/ ends with the consonant -b followed by -le.)

Each of these syllable types follows the rule of having a singular vowel sound and either no consonants or a range of consonants before, after, or surrounding the vowel sound.

Syllable: examples

An example of a syllable is the word 'hello', which has two syllables: "hel" and "lo". To ensure each of these syllable types is cemented in our minds, let's look at a few more syllable examples for each type:

Closed Syllables

Open Syllables

Vowel-Consonant-e Syllables

Diphthong Syllables

R-Controlled Syllables

Consonant-le Syllables

Fig 2. Every syllable must have one vowel sound and can have a variety of consonants

Syllable division

If you aren't used to doing it, syllable division can sometimes be a bit tricky. What do we mean by 'syllable division'?

There are several ways to divide words into syllables, and these ways depend on the composition of the word. There are seven rules you can learn to make syllable division easier.

Syllable rules

The seven syllable rules mentioned above are as follows:

• A syllable can only have one vowel sound. Using this logic, you can divide words into syllables by looking at the vowel sounds.

• Dividing between two of the same consonant. If a word has two of the same consonant (e.g., "mopping"), you can divide the word into syllables between them (e.g., "mopping" becomes "mop" + "ping"). For this rule to work, the double consonant must have a vowel on either side. In the "mopping" example, there is an "-o" on one side of the double -p and an "-i" on the other.

• Divide according to the length of the vowel sound. Some vowel sounds are short, some are long, and some words include both. You can figure out where to divide a word into syllables depending on the kind of vowel sounds in that word.

• Divide between two vowels if they make different sounds. If a word has two vowels next to each other that produce two different sounds, then you should divide between these two vowels (e.g., "diet" becomes "di" + "et", and "diaspora" becomes "di" + "as" + "por" + "a").

• Affixes become separate syllables. If a word has been inflected to include a prefix, suffix, or both, then these affixes become their own syllables (e.g., "endless" becomes "end" + "less" and "reread" becomes "re" + "read").

• Compound words are always divided between the two words. If a word is made up of two or more other words, then there should be syllable divisions between them.

• Divide before consonant-le structures. If a word ends with a consonant followed by -le, then you should divide the word before the consonant preceding the -le (e.g., "needle" becomes "nee" + "dle" and "turtle" becomes "tur" + "tle").

By following these seven rules, you should be able to identify where a word should be divided into syllables.

Fig 3. "Tyrannosaurus Rex" has six syllables! Typically, the longer the word, the more syllables it has.

Names with two syllables

For a bit of fun, we'll end this article by looking at some names with two syllables.

This table shows the two-syllable names and how they can be divided into their constituent syllables in IPA (international phonetic alphabet).