The Syllable in English and Arabic: a contrastive Study

 
 
 
 
 
764
رتمؤلما عئاقو
ينلعلا
لولاا
وولعلل
ةيىاشىلاا
يضاترفلاا
ةعمالجا /ةيساسلاا ةيبترلا ةيلك /
ٌواعتلابو ةيرصيتشلما
عم
ةعماج /ةيساسلاا ةيبترلا ةيلك
راق يذ
02
- 
02
ٌاريزح
0202
و
( راعش تتح
ًكنتيل..... هلعتى
)
رتمؤلما عئاقو
ينلعلا
لولاا
وولعلل
ةيىاشىلاا
يضاترفلاا
/
ةيرصيتشلما ةعمالجا /ةيساسلاا ةيبترلا ةيلك
عم ٌواعتلابو
ةعماج /ةيساسلاا ةيبترلا ةيلك
راق يذ
02
 -
02
 
زح
ٌاري
0202
خيراتب
61
/
4
/
0202
ةيساسلاا ةيبترلا ةيلك ةلمج
ةيرصيتشلما ةعمالجا
Introduction 
English and Arabic languages give another title to the word syllable as the 
phonological structure block of words and as an elementary unit of 
association for an arrangement of a language, via its stress patterns and 
prosody. Thus, two proportions can be seen within this topic : the first one is 
dealt with Phonetics , in which syllables are defined in English as containing 
of a focus which has little or no obstacle to air- flow headed and surveyed via 
a specific type of impediment; while in Arabic, syllables are phonetically 
labeled as chest pulses , and the second one is about Phonology , the syllable 
is apparent in English as a compound unit ended up of nuclear and bordering 
elements and in Arabic it is apparent as a unit per language , i.e. each 
language has its own orders of consonants and vowels alongside with other 
aspects as in stress, length and intonation. 
1. The Syllable in English
1.1 Theories of the Syllable in English
a. The Prominence Theory 
It is a listener-based theory where the number of syllables in any word 
can be determined by the listeners as they recognize the sounds that are more 
prominent or sonorant than others, i.e. they are felt to stand out from their 
neighbors. These sounds are the peaks of prominence and they are generally 
carried by vowels. Consonant, on the other hand, are the sounds of weak 
prominence and they represent the valleys (Brosnahan and Malmberg, 1970: 
141). 
The prominence theory is based mainly on auditory judgments and that 
the number of syllables in a word is determined by the number of peaks of 
prominence, for example, in a word like "entertain," three peaks of 
prominence are recognized (Gimson, 1975: 56). However, misunderstanding 
occurs, for example, listeners may hear a word like "a name" as /әn eim/ 
instead of /ә neim/. Although the example shows that prominence theory does 
not help much in the discussion of syllable division, yet, one cannot deny the 
fact that the syllable can be viewed as a prosodic constituent made up of 
segments connected in clusters (Roca and Johnson, 1990: 702).