Syllable

音节

A unit of pronunciation typically larger than a single sound and smaller than a word. A word may be pronounced ‘syllable at a time’, and a good dictionary will indicate where these syllabic divisions occur in writing, thus providing information about how a word may be hyphenated. The notion of syllable, in short, is very real to native-speakers, and is often used in a quasi-technical sense in everyday conversation. Syllabification is the term which refers to the division of a word into syllables; resyllabification refers to a reanalysis which alters the location of syllable boundaries. A word containing a single syllable is called a monosyllable; if it contains more than one, the term polysyllable is used (or monosyllabic word / polysyllabic word respectively).

Phonological views of the syllable focus on the ways sounds combine in individual languages to produce typical sequences. Here two classes of sounds are usually established: sounds which can occur on their own, or at the centre of a sequence of sounds, and sounds which cannot occur on their own, or which occur at the edges of a sequence of sounds. The former include such sounds as [i],[a],[u], etc., and are generally referred to as vowels; the latter include such sounds as [p],[g],[f],[tʃ],etc., and are generally referred to as consonants. A consonant-vowel (CV) sequence is a pattern which seems to be found in all languages: because the syllable is not ‘closed’ by another consonant, this type of syllable is often called an open syllable type. A CVC pattern is also very common in English. In such a case, the following terminology is widely used:

the opening segment of a syllable = the onset,

the closing segment of the syllable = the coda,

the central segment of the syllable = the centre or nucleus.

A useful collective term for the opening and closing segments is the margins (or edges) of the syllable. In metrical phonology, the nucleus and coda are viewed as a single constituent of syllable structure, called the rhyme (or rime), and syllables are distinguished phonologically in terms of their weight.

In the distinctive feature theory of phonology proposed by Chomsky and Halle, syllabic is used to replace the earlier term ‘vocalic’, referring to all segments constituting a syllabic nucleus. Vowels, liquids and nasals would be [+syllabic] ([+syll]); all other segments would be [-syll].

指一个发音单位，通常大于单一的音而小于一个词。词的发音可以“一个音节一顿”，一部好词典会标明书写时发生的这种音节区分，从而提供有关词内何处可加连字符的信息。简而言之，音节的概念对操本族语者来说是很实在的，并常以准专业术语用于日常会话。音节划分指一个词划分成若干音节，音节重新划分指改变音节界限的重新分析。只含一个音节的词称作单音节，如含的音节不止一个就称作多音节（或分别称作“单音节词”和“多音节词”）。

音系学对音节的观点是集中于个别语言中语音如何结合起来产生典型的序列。按这种观点，语音通常分为两类，一类音能独立出现，或位于语音序列的中心；另一类音不能独立出现，或位于语音序列的边缘。前者包括[i]，[a]，[u]等，一般称作元音；后者包括[p]，[g]，[f]，[tʃ]]这类音，一般称作辅音。辅音-元音（CV）序列看来是所有语言都有的一种型式：因为这个序列没有另一个辅音来“关闭”它，这类音节常称作开音节。CVC型式在英语中也很常见，这种型式一般采用以下一些术语：

音节的起首音段=节首

音节的节尾音段=节尾

音节的中央音段=节心或节核（韵腹）

一个有用的术语是音节的边界音（或边缘），统指起首音段和结尾音段。在节律音系学中，韵腹加韵尾被视作音节结构的一个组构成分，称作韵基；音系学还按音重来区分音节。

在乔姆斯基和哈勒提出的区别特征理论中，成音节取代早先的“元音性”，指所有构成一个节核的音段。元音、边音和鼻音为[+成音节]（[+syll]），其他音段都为[-成音节]。