I have a paper on different uses of syllables and moras (morae if you
believe that it is still a Latin word) on my website, entitled Syllable
Integrity. It is also in the Proceedings of the XVI West Coast
Conference on Formal Linguistics.
Dan
On Monday, Jun 2, 2003, at 17:48 Europe/London, Jane Setter wrote:
> Hi Linda
>
> I've also struggled with this in the past.
>
> My personal feeling is that the best approach is 1. For example,
> using romaji, 'san' meaning e.g. 'mountain' in 'Fuji-san' has one
> syllable but two morae, 'sa' and 'n'.
>
> 'Yappari' (something like 'indeed') seems to have three syllables but
> four morae, where one is a mora consonant, which is the result, or
> perhaps the cause, of gemination. So the syllables are 'yap-pa-ri'
> and the morae are 'ya-bilabial mora consonant-pa-ri'.
>
> I've also seen this applied to English, by the way (but can't remember
> the reference!) in order to explain heavy and light syllables, heavy
> syllables having more than one mora. A long vowel or a diphthong, or
> anything ending with a consonant, is bound to fall into this category.
>
> I'd like to see what others think about this!
>
> Jane*
>
> ------------------
>> I have three grad students (two Japanese and one not) who are
>> struggling with the question of whether it makes sense to analyse
>> Japanese in terms of syllables. Can I get your angle on this
>> issue? Does any of the three following positions seem correct?
>>
>> 1. All languages can be analysed into phonetic syllables (so
>> Japanese has them), but some languages (like Japanese) do not use
>> them phonologically.
>>
>> 2. The syllable is a timing unit. Japanese does not use it as
>> such, so it has no syllables in any meaningful way.
>>
>> 3. Japanese has some phonological processes which are sensitive to
>> the syllable and some which are sensitive to the mora. Therefore
>> it has both phonologically.
>>
>>
>> If these are all wrong, what is right?
>>
>> Any comments (other than 'why worry about it?) would be greatly
>> appreciated.
>>
>> Linda Shockey
>> School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
>> University of Reading
>> Whiteknights, RG6 6AA
>> 0118 - 378-7459
>>
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> Dr. J. E. Setter
> Director, English Pronunciation Research Unit
> School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
> The University of Reading
> Whiteknights, PO Box 218
> READING RG6 6AA UK
>
> Tel: +44 (0)118 378 6089
> Fax: +44 (0)118 975 3365
> http://www.rdg.ac.uk/EPU
> http://www.rdg.ac.uk/slals/setter.htm
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>
>
------------------------------------------
Daniel L. Everett
Chair of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
The University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester, UK M13 9PL
http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de
Fax: 44-161-275-3187
Office: 44-161-275-3158
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