INTRODUCTION:

Syllables are often considered the phonological "building blocks"

of words. They can influence the rhythm of a language. Syllabic
writing began several hundred years before the first letters. The earliest
recorded syllables are on tablets written around 2800 BC in
the Sumerian city of Ur. 

A word that consists of a single syllable (like dog) is called

a monosyllable (and is said to be monosyllabic). Similar terms
include disyllable (and disyllabic; also bisyllable and bisyllabic) for a word
of two syllables; trisyllable (and trisyllabic) for a word of three syllables;
and polysyllable (and polysyllabic), which may refer either to a word of
more than three syllables or to any word of more than one syllable.

MEANING OF SYLLALBLE:
“A unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without
surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a world”

For Example:
There are two syllables in water and three in inferno.

WHAT IS SYLLABLE?
A syllable is a part of a word that contains a single vowel sound and that is
pronounced as a unit. So, for example, ' book' has one syllable, and
' reading' has two syllables.
“Syllable are formed by adding vowels and consonants together”
A syllable is one unit of sound in English. Syllables can have more than one
letter; however, a syllable cannot have more than one sound. Syllables must
contain a singular vowel sound and may or may not have consonants before,
after, or surrounding the vowel sound.
Syllables can have more than one consonant and more than one vowel, as
well. However, the consonant(s) and vowel(s) that create the syllable cannot
make more than one sound.

EXAMPLES OF SYLLABLE:
 English: Eng + lish
 exact: ex + act
 mother: mo + ther
 classroom: class + room
 begin: be + gin

TYPES OF SYLLABLE:
We’ll learn about the different kinds of syllable. While there are two
main types of syllables, closed and open, there can also be split into six
different kinds. 

 closed
 open
 vowel-consonant-e
 r-controlled
 diphthong
 consonant-le

1. Closed Syllable:
A closed syllable is a word unit with a single vowel that ends with a
consonant. These have a short sound such as bat, plant, shop and rabbit.
2. Open Syllable:
An open syllable is a word unit that ends with a single vowel such as go, me,
you and potato.

There are more types of syllables that you might come across in more
advanced grammar, including:

 magic 'e' or vowel-consonant -e;

 R-controlled syllables;
 Diphthong (vowel team);
 And consonant 'le'.

3. Vowel-consonant-e Syllable (VCE):

These syllables end in a final silent 'e' (hence why they're nicknamed magic
'e' syllables) with a consonant just before the silent 'e'. The silent 'e' makes the
vowel before the consonant have a long sound. Here are some examples:

 line
 cute
 mine
 pine
 mute
 home
This syllable is usually taught after children are familiar with short and long
sounds, as well as closed and open syllables. Here's a teaching tip for you: to
transition from closed syllables to VCE words, try adding a silent 'E' to CVC
words. For example, 'hat' becomes 'hate' and 'tap' becomes 'tape'.

4. R-controlled Syllable (VR):

In r-controlled syllable words, there's always a vowel followed by an 'r'. The
'r' gives the word a unique sound. Examples of VR words:

 her
 fur
 ear
 for
 purr
This kind of syllable is taught after open, closed and VCE syllables.

5. Diphthong (vowel team) Syllable:

A diphthong syllable usually has two vowels next to each other which are
pronounced together, which is why they're dubbed 'vowel teams' - the vowels
work together as a syllable. The vowel combinations are typically:

 ai
 ay
 ow
 oe
 ie
 ee
 oi
 ea
  oa
Here are examples of words with diphthong syllables:

 tail;
 play;
 grow;
 oboe;
 eight;
 meet;
 beat;
 boat.
In some words, there are two vowels next to each other, but the combination
is reversed when compared to a diphthong syllable where the vowels are
pronounced together.

For example, many words have the vowel combination 'io' in them, such as
the word 'lion'. With these vowel combinations, you split the syllable
between 'i' and 'o' so that the word actually has two syllables. These syllables
are still known as vowel teams.

6. Consonant 'le' Syllable:

These syllables have no vowel sound - the silent 'e' at the end of the syllable
works as the only vowel. You only pronounce the consonant and the 'l'.
Examples of words with the 'le' syllable:

 maple
 purple
 turtle
 ripple
 circle
 cycle
 table
SYLLABLE RULES:
The seven syllable rules mentioned above are as follows:

 A syllable can only have one vowel sound. Using this logic, you
can divide words into syllables by looking at the vowel sounds.

EXAMPLE:
The word "plant" only has one vowel sound, so the word itself is only one
syllable. The word "coriander," however, has four vowel sounds and is
therefore divided into four syllables – "co" + "ri" + "an" + "der," where
each syllable has a vowel sound.

 Dividing between two of the same consonant. If a word has two of

the same consonant (e.g., "mopping"), you can divide the word into
syllables between them (e.g., "mopping" becomes "mop" + "ping").
For this rule to work, the double consonant must have a vowel on either
side. In the "mopping" example, there is an "-o" on one side of the
double -p and an "-i" on the other.

 Divide according to the length of the vowel sound. Some vowel

sounds are short, some are long, and some words include both. You can
figure out where to divide a word into syllables depending on the kind
of vowel sounds in that word.

EXAMPLE:
If the first vowel sound in a word is long, then the divide should come after
the first vowel. For instance, in the word "deepen," the first vowel sound is
the long -e, so the division into syllables would look like: "dee" + "pen." In
this case, the middle consonant becomes attached to the second vowel sound.
If the first vowel sound in a word is short, then the divide should come before
the second vowel sound in the word. In the word "figure," the first vowel
sound is the short -i, so the division into syllables would look like: "fig" +
"ure". In this case, the middle consonant attaches to the first vowel sound.
  Divide between two vowels if they make different sounds. If a
word has two vowels next to each other that produce two different
sounds, then you should divide between these two vowels (e.g., "diet"
becomes "di" + "et", and "diaspora" becomes "di" + "as" + "por"
+ "a").

 Affixes become separate syllables. If a word has been inflected to

include a prefix, suffix, or both, then these affixes become their own
syllables (e.g., "endless" becomes "end" + "less" and "reread"
becomes "re" + "read").

 Compound words are always divided between the two words. If

a word is made up of two or more other words, then there should be
syllable divisions between them.

EXAMPLE:
"Cupcake": "cup" + "cake"
"Something": "some" + "thing"
"Sunflower": "sun" + "flow" + "er" (here, "flower" is split into two
syllables because it includes two different vowel sounds - ˈflaʊ + ər ).

 Divide before consonant-le structures. If a word ends with a

consonant followed by -le, then you should divide the word before the
consonant preceding the -le (e.g., "needle" becomes "nee" + "dle"
and "turtle" becomes "tur" + "tle").

By following these seven rules, you should be able to identify where a word
should be divided into syllables.
 STRESS

MEANING OF STESS
“Word stress is the emphasis we place in a specific syllable of a word when
pronouncing it.” In English words that have more than one syllable, we usually don’t
pronounce every syllable with the same weight, so each syllable in a word can be
stressed or unstressed.

WHAT IS STRESS?
In English, the individual sounds of a word aren’t pronounced with the same
weight. One syllable receives more emphasis than the others. In English,
stressed syllables are louder than non-stressed syllables. Also, they are longer and
have a higher pitch.
- i.e. air comes out of our lungs with more power; but they might also be longer, or pronounced
with higher or lower in pitch.
English is a stress-timed language. That means that stressed syllables appear at a
roughly steady tempo, whereas non-stressed syllables are shortened.

Syllables that are not pronounced with such emphasis are usually referred to as
unstressed syllables, and they are usually not pronounced as clearly as the others.
Some longer words may have more than one ‘strong syllables’, but one of them tends
to stand out more than the other. They are referred to as primary and secondary
stress, the former being the strongest.

FOR EXAMPLE
garden   the first syllable is stressed: garden
meadow   the first syllable is stressed: meadow
humidity   the second syllable is stressed: humidity

Quiet
 party, 
special
today
 orange
 Fantastic
 Energy
Expensive
aggresion
 wonderful
Responsibility
idiosyncratic,
invisibility
Industrialisation
Multiculturalism
Carpet
although
Unlike sentence stress, that frequently changes position according to the speakers’
intention, word stress tends to be fairly invariable. As a result, even when we want to
emphasise a word over all others in an utterance, we tend to stick to the usual word
stress pattern, making the stressed syllable even longer, louder or more high-pitched.
Because of this relative invariability, mistakes in word stress may lead to more
problems with intelligibility than other errors related to pronunciation, so it is crucial that
students are made aware of how the word is usually pronounced. Luckily, the same
regularity makes stress patterns fairly easy to teach, and it helps students recognise
words with less effort.

Levels Of Syllable Stress

1.  Primary Stress: 
The syllable with the Primary Stress is the loudest and longest syllable
in a word. It has a very noticeable change in pitch on the vowel. In one-
syllable words, that one syllable gets the primary stress.

Examples:

“blue” = /BLUUU/
“ten” = /TEHN/

The only exceptions to this rule are a handful of function words like
“the” which are usually unstressed or reduced.

2.  Secondary Stress:  

Secondary stress (or obsolete: secondary accent) is the weaker of two
degrees of stress in the pronunciation of a word, the stronger degree of
stress being called primary.

These are the syllables that are stressed, but not as much the primary
stress, so they are loud and long with a change in pitch, but not as loud
or as long as the syllables that get the primary stress. The change in
pitch on the vowel is not quite as noticeable.

Example:
“disappear” = /DIH-suh PEEER/ (syllable with secondary stress is
underlined)

3.  completely Unstressed Syllable:  

These are the syllables that have no stress at all so we rush through
them and shorten them so much that the vowel in the syllable is almost
completely gone.   The change in pitch on the vowel is barely
noticeable, but it is there.

Example:
“prepare” = /pruh-PAIR/ (unstressed syllable is underlined)

And just as a reminder, the important part of all of this is...

It’s the contrast between all these different levels of loudness,

duration, and pitch that creates the rhythm of English.
 RULES OF STRESS
1. One word has only one stress. (One word cannot have two
stresses. If you hear two stresses, you hear two words. Two stresses
cannot be one word. It is true that there can be a "secondary" stress in
some words. But a secondary stress is much smaller than the main
[primary] stress, and is only used in long words.)

2. We can only stress vowels, not consonants.

Here are some more, rather complicated, rules that can help you understand
where to put the stress. But do not rely on them too much, because there are
many exceptions. It is better to try to "feel" the music of the language and to
add the stress naturally.

Most two-syllable verbs and prepositions:

When a verb (a word referring to an action, event or state of being) or a
preposition (a word that comes before a noun, pronoun or the “-ing” form of a
verb, and shows its relation to another word or part of the sentence) has two
syllables, the stress is usually on the second syllable.
Stress on the last syllable.
 
Examples:
present /pre-SENT/
export /ex-PORT/
aside /a-SIDE/
between /be-TWEEN/

Nouns and adjectives with two syllables

When a noun (a word referring to a person, thing, place or abstract quality) or
an adjective (a word that gives information about a noun) has two syllables,
the stress is usually on the first syllable.
Examples:

table /TA-ble/
scissors /SCI-ssors/
pretty /PRE-tty/,
clever /CLE-ver/

Words that end in -cy, -ty, -phy and –gy:

 When a word ends in “cy,” “ty,” “phy,” “gy” and “al,” the stress is often on the
third to last syllable. Similarly, you count syllables backwards and put a stress
on the third one from the end. 

Examples:
democracy /de-MO-cra-cy/
photography /pho-TO-gra-phy/
logical /LO-gi-cal/
commodity /com-MO-di-ty/
psychology /psy-CHO-lo-gy/

 Three syllable words ending in “er” and “ly”:

Words that have three syllables and end in “-er” or “-ly” often have a stress on
the first syllable.

Examples:
orderly /OR-der-ly/
quietly /QUI-et-ly/
manager /MA-na-ger

Compound nouns:
In most compound nouns (a noun made up of two or more existing words), the
word stress is on the first noun.
Examples:

football /FOOT-ball/
keyboard /KEY-board/

Compound adjectives and verbs

In most compound adjectives (a single adjective made of more than one word
and often linked with a hyphen) and compound verbs (a multi-word verb that
functions as a single verb), the stress is on the second word.

Examples:
old-fashioned /old-FA-shioned/
understand /un-der–STAND/

Conclusion
Sentence stress is an element of English that can be difficult to grasp, especially for
beginner or even intermediate learners. However, with practice, you can use stress to
accurately express yourself. With time, you’ll find that sense and sentence stress are
some of the best ways to get your point across to other English speakers!