American English Phonetics
Another American English Faculty Project
8.7 The syllable
Every syllable consists of a peak, which may be followed by a coda and preceded by an onset. The peak is the vowel. The coda contains maximally four consonants, and the onset maximally three. The following table illustrates these constituents for a number of one-syllable words.
| ONSET | PEAK | CODA | |
| pot | p | ɑː | t |
| spew | spj | uː | – |
| ill | – | ɪ | l |
| lie | l | aɪ | – |
| awe | – | ɑː | – |
| twelfths | tw | ɛ | lfθs |
The syllabification of GA words is governed by two rules. These are:
- The Maximum Onset Principle (MOP)
- The Weak Syllable Principle (WSP).
In addition, there is one rule which can build syllables across words. This rule is called Liaison.