The difference between a regular consonant and a syllabic consonant

Question

Trying to understand the difference between regular consonants and Syllabic Consonants. Two examples are from Danish.

• [ð̩] skinnede
• [l̩] solen

To start (for some context), the way I would naturally pronounce solen is "só-lin", but hearing the pronunciation above, it is more like "soul-lán", with a sort of pausing/lengthening around the l, and the l seems to occur in both syllables (end of one and start of another), not sure if that's relevant. For skinnede I hear "skinew", I don't hear the d (ð̩) as in "the".

From reading about syllabic consonants:

[It] is a consonant that forms a syllable on its own, like the m, n and l in the English words rhythm, button and bottle, or is the nucleus of a syllable, like the r sound in the American pronunciation of work.

I understand rhythm, since it's like rhyth-m, two syllables basically (more like rhyth-thm, where the first syllable starts the th sound, and the next syllable finishes it. Same with button, it's like but-n, and bottle as bot-l.

So wondering if one could better explain what a syllabic consonant is by providing a comparison with regular consonants. For example, comparing solen with golen or some other random word (just made that up). Something close but that demonstrates a non-syllabic consonant. Also knowing how syllabic consonants relate to the nucleus would help make it more understandable.

Answer 1

One way to get a better grasp of the phonetics of syllabic consonants is to listen to a minimal pair in a language that has them, such as here. This is the pair [mbááŋgàà m̩̀bááŋgàà] (in that order) meaning "I am arranging", "you pl. are arranging", in Logoori. Phonologically, the difference is that [m̩] is an entire syllable, and [m] is just a consonant which has to be followed by a vowel (b, w, j could come between m and the vowel). Because [m̩] is a syllable, it has a tone (every syllable has some tone), but [m] has no tone. Phonetically, the most obvious clue that you have a syllabic m̩ is duration; preconsonantal [m] is very short, under 60 msc, and syllabic [m̩] is about 140 msc long.

I would not recommend Danish as the best exemplar of syllabic consonants, since Danish phonetics is extremely complicated and theoretically fraught. If you are interested in Danish, I recommend Hans Basbøll's The phonology of Danish, which mercifully gives phonetic transcriptions. The claim about syllabic ð̩ is about "some pronunciations", not necessarily the one you got on Forvo.

Answer 2

The question of "syllabicity" comes down to syllable structure. Every known language has some sort of prosodic unit that we can call a "syllable", usually (but not always!) smaller than a whole word and larger than a single phoneme. In languages with morae, like Japanese, syllables are also larger than morae.

And in particular, every syllable seems to be built around a nucleus, potentially with other things before and after it. This nucleus is always something that can be extended to an arbitrary length (so usually not a plosive—but even a plosive nucleus is attested in certain African languages!) and it's always there, never entirely missing.

This nucleus is said to be syllabic, since it's the core of a syllable. And anything that's not a syllable nucleus is non-syllabic. Vowels by default are syllabic, and consonants are not. But this is a very arbitrary distinction that the IPA chooses to draw, rather than any real phonetic property! While [j] is a "voiced palatal approximant" and [i] is a "high front unrounded vowel", the only real difference between the two is that [i] is syllabic and [j] is not. So [dai] is two syllables unless otherwise specified, while [daj] is one.

One way to tell the difference between them is that a syllabic sound can stand on its own, while a non-syllabic one can't. Try saying [m] without a vowel next to it, then the same for [b]. This is a hint that that in English, [m] can be syllabic while [b] can't. Or, look for words where that sound is a syllable nucleus: that's the only way to really be sure.

Answer 3

There's a minimal pair in English: "Lightening" - to reduce weight, with a a syllabic 'n', and "Lightning" - electrical discharge. At least they are distinct when I say them.

Answer 4

A syllabic consonant is a term for when the nucleus of a syllable is a consonant and not a vowel. Normally, vowels form the nucleus of a syllable because they are the most sonorous.

For example, in the word, "Alabama" [æ.lə.ˈbæ.mə] there are four syllables separated by the .symbol.

Do you see how each syllable has a vowel (as its nucleus, in fact)?

In English, it is common to form words that contain syllables which have no vowels at all, as in "rythm" [ɹɪ.ðm̩]. So, we say that the [m] in the second syllable of the word "rythm" is a syllabic consonant because it forms the nucleus of the syllable. In IPA, the diacritic that you use to mark a syllabic consonant is a small vertical line (placed underneath the syllabic consonant, see example). Some languages, like Spanish, don't permit syllabic consonants (an exception being Mexican Spanish beacuse of the -tl suffix from nahuatl)

If this doesn't make sense, you should read some introductory phonology, I recommend the book "Introductory Phonology" by Bruce Hayes.

Answer 5

Except for rapid speech, a syllabic sound has a steady state, during which there is no appreciable change in the position of articulation for that sound. [This is just my own attempt to characterize the practice of phonologists -- others will probably disagree.]