Goal: Play around with syllable structures
Note: Syllable structure is a major step in creating the phonotactics and, thus, the aesthetic of your language.
Tip: Focus on a maximum syllable structure; only set minimums if you want stricter syllable structures.
Work focus: Learn/Brainstorm/Try
If you are brand new to language creation and/or linguistic studies, you may need more of an introduction to syllable structure than I will be providing in this post. If that’s the case, I encourage you to look for more resources online if there are any terms I use here that you need more information about. The goal for today is for you to decide the basic syllable structure you want for your proto-forms. In other words, you need to start deciding how you will put the sounds you’ve selected for your language into larger units.
Basic Syllable Structures
A syllable is a unit of sound production that is usually described in these structural terms:
- onset: one or more consonant sounds in the initial position of a syllable
- nucleus: typically a vowel sound—the sound with the highest sonority of the syllable structure
- coda: one or more consonant sounds in the final position of a syllable
When describing syllable structures, linguists often use a C-V notation, where “V” represents the vowel in the nucleus position, and “C” represents any consonant sound. If the C occurs before the V, it is in the onset position. If it occurs after the V within the syllable, it is in the coda position.
A syllable minimally consists of a nucleus. If your language has diphthongs or long vowels, they work together to fill a single nucleus of a syllable. If your language does not have diphthongs, then a sequence of two vowels will likely represent two separate syllables, where, for instance, dau is two syllables: [da.u] (a period separates syllables in IPA transcriptions). Many languages allow the minimal V structure, but not all do. You may decide to restrict the minimal structure of a syllable to a CV structure, where every syllable must have an onset consonant.
In general, languages are more flexible with onsets than codas. Coda consonants are special and are the basis of distinguishing open from closed syllables: an open syllable does not have any sounds in the coda position while a closed syllable does. Therefore, [ma] and [a] are open syllables while [mak], [ak], [malz], and [alz] are closed syllables. You could also consider allowing codas, but only after monophthongs. In such a system, if a syllable has a diphthong in its nucleus, it must be an open syllable.
Many languages allow any consonant from their inventory to serve as an onset but restrict what sounds can serve as a coda, such as only allowing nasals or fricatives in the coda position. Some are so restrictive that only a particular consonant can occur as a coda. Japanese only allows the [n] to appear in the coda position. Most syllables in Japanese are open (i.e. they end with the nucleus), but if a syllable is closed, the only possible sound that can occur in the coda position is [n].
Consonant Clusters
A consonant cluster occurs when two or more consonants occupy the same position in the syllable. You may choose not to have any clusters allowed, which means all the syllables in your language will maximally be CVC (if you allow codas—if you don’t, then CV will be the maximum structure).
Clusters tend to be more common in the onset position than the coda, so even if you decide to include consonant clusters as a feature of your language, you may choose to only allow them in the onset position, such as allowing CCVC structures like [klim] but not CVCC structures like [kilm]. As you decide whether you will include consonant clusters, you also need to decide the maximum number of consonant sounds your language will allow in each cluster. There are languages like Georgian that allow quite complex consonant clusters, with four or more consonants working together within a single position of the syllable. If you like that idea, you might want to consider starting with allowing smaller consonant clusters in the proto-forms (e.g. two consonants or three consonants at most) and then using sound changes to result in forms with more complex consonant clusters.
Once you decide how many consonant sounds can occur within a cluster, you further need to figure out what consonants can occur in which position within the cluster. A general guideline to start this decision is to have onset clusters build in sonority and any coda clusters decrease in sonority. A basic sonority hierarchy tends to look like this:
stop < fricative < nasal < approximant < vowel
A stop is the least sonorous sound, and a vowel is the most sonorous sound. Based on this hierarchy, you’d expect a cluster like “bl” might be allowed in the onset but not in the coda.
Advanced Note
While vowels are the most likely sounds to occur in the nucleus slot, they are not the only ones that can. Some languages allow syllabic consonants, which are consonants that occur in the nucleus. Consonants more likely to occur as a syllabic consonant are the approximants and nasals, which are higher in sonority, but fricatives can also occur in that position. (An example of a syllabic fricative is like the syllable structure you find in English’s attention-getting psst.)
Words of Caution
A syllable is not the same concept as a word. There are, of course, one-syllable words, and English has many of them: eye, take, love, you, foot, stand. However, many units considered a “word” in a language have more than one syllable, like lovely, understanding, footstool… Right now, you are deciding syllable structures—not words.
When you set a maximum syllable structure, that doesn’t mean every single syllable has to take that particular shape. Most languages allow a variety of structures found within that maximum structure. For instance, if your language has a maximum syllable of CCVC, then your language may also allow these structures: CVC, CV, VC, CCV, V.