Syllable length (linguistics)

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In linguistics, the syllable length is the number of units that make up a syllable . Possible measures for the syllable length are:

  • Number of characters that make up a syllable in the typeface;
  • Number of sounds or phonemes that make up a syllable in spoken language.

Syllable length (number of sounds per syllable) in German

A syllable consists of three parts: the beginning of the syllable, followed by the core of the syllable and finally the end of the syllable, the coda .

In German, the beginning of a syllable can form a maximum of 3 sounds ([ʃtʀ-]), the core 1 sound (vowel or diphthong), the coda up to 4 sounds (e.g. [-lçst]) Sounds occur in a syllable; if affricates (e.g. [pf]) and diphthongs (e.g. [aɪ̯]) are viewed as a sequence of sounds and not as single sounds, correspondingly more). Example: "(you) strolchst" [ʃtʀɔlçst] (= 8 sounds).

The minimum syllable length consists - phonetically speaking - of either a vowel or a diphthong . Examples of this would be the interjection "oh" [oː] or the word "Ei" [aɪ̯].

Examples

Syllable lengths in the dictionary

Menzerath evaluated a German pronunciation dictionary with 20,453 headwords and found the following distribution of lengths of 2245 monosyllables:

Sounds per syllable Number of monosyllabic words with this phonetic number Percentage
1 9 0.40
2 114 5.08
3 645 28.73
4th 962 42.85
5 444 19.78
6th 69 3.07
7th 2 0.09

The distribution of the syllable lengths in this dictionary is clear: the syllables with 3–5 sounds are the most common. Average of the syllable lengths in this dictionary: M = 3.86. A monosyllabic word with 8 sounds did not appear in the evaluated dictionary.

Syllable lengths in texts

Investigations into syllable lengths in press releases show a different picture: syllables with 2–3 phonemes are clearly preferred . In the following investigations, phonemes were counted per syllable and not, as in Menzerath's case, sounds; numerically this makes a certain difference, since Menzerath does not count any clicks, but evaluates affricates and diphthongs as sound sequences and not as uniform sounds; In the investigations mentioned below, affricates and diphthongs were recorded as units and not as sequences of units.

If you add the data from the two studies to the total of 42 press releases, you get 7382 syllables, which are distributed as follows:

Phonemes per syllable Number of syllables with this phoneme number Percentage
1 216 2.93
2 2952 39.99
3 3321 44.99
4th 790 10.70
5 90 1.22
6th 13 0.18

Syllables with 7 or even 8 phonemes did not appear in the press releases examined. Mean value of the syllable lengths in the press releases: M = 2.68.

Some more data to compare:

Class of text Number of syllables Mean (phonemes / syllable)
Lichtenberg, Sudelbuch H 5113 2.64
Pestalozzi, fables 5145 2.63
DPA messages 4138 2.67
Magazine: Musikexpress 7745 2.65
Magazine: Rolling Stone 9550 2.67
Magazine: Vision 8387 2.68
(Press releases 7382 2.68)

If you want to determine the length of the syllable not by the number of sounds but by the number of letters, you can add about 10% to the given data. According to Meier, there are 112 letters for every 100 sounds in German.

Syllable lengths in other languages

The syllable structures and the associated syllable lengths are a feature in which languages ​​can clearly differ. The ability to combine consonants and vowels in a word are very different. Stiberc points out that Japanese prefers the syllable structure consonant plus vowel (KV), so that the German words "Ablaut" and "Umlaut", which are borrowed from Japanese, become apurauto and umurauto , respectively .

See also

literature

  • Duden. The grammar. 7th, completely new and expanded edition. Dudenverlag, Mannheim a. a. 2005, p. 40f .: The general syllable construction law . ISBN 3-411-04047-5 .
  • Paul Menzerath: The architecture of the German vocabulary. Dümmler, Bonn / Hanover / Stuttgart 1954; to the German monosyllables, pages 18–69.

Web links

Wiktionary: syllable length  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Duden. The grammar. 7th, completely new and expanded edition. Dudenverlag, Mannheim a. a. 2005, p. 40f .: The general syllable construction law . ISBN 3-411-04047-5 .
  2. ^ Peter Eisenberg : Outline of the German grammar. Volume 1: The Word. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1998, ISBN 3-476-01639-0 , p. 102.
  3. The transcription system is taken from the German Wiktionary.
  4. ^ Wilhelm Viëtor : German pronunciation dictionary . Reisland, Leipzig 1921.
  5. ^ Menzerath, page 71.
  6. ^ Karl-Heinz Best : Syllable lengths in reports in the daily press . In: Karl-Heinz Best (Ed.): Frequency distributions in texts . Peust & Gutschmidt, Göttingen 2001, pages 15-32.
  7. Falk-Uwe Cassier: Syllable lengths in reports in the German daily press . In: Karl-Heinz Best (Ed.): Frequency distributions in texts . Peust & Gutschmidt, Göttingen 2001, pages 33-42.
  8. ^ Karl-Heinz Best: Syllable lengths in German . In: Glottotheory 4, 2013, pages 36-44, data on page 42.
  9. ^ Helmut Meier : German language statistics . 2nd, enlarged and improved edition. Olms, Hildesheim 1967, 1978, ISBN 3-487-00735-5 , page 321.
  10. Andrea Stiberc: Sauerkraut, Weltschmerz, Kindergarten and Co. German words in the world. Herder, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-451-04701-2 , page 44.