Syllable consists of:

- onset – one or more Consonant sounds

- nucleus or „the peak” – the vowel sound in the middle of a syllable
- coda – one or more Consonant sounds

EVERY syllable must have a nucleus, but NOT EVERY syllable has an onset or coda.

Syllable
onset nucleus coda
Consonant Vowel Consonant

What is the onset and zero onset?

- The onset is the sound at the beginning of the syllable. It comes before the nucleus. The
onset can be one, two or three consonants (consonant cluster), e.g. ‘b-’ in „buy”, ‘pl-’ in
„plan”, ‘str-’ in „strong”. Some consonant combinations are not allowed in English, e.g. ‘tl-’
or ‘ks-’.

- Most syllables have an onset, but some syllables don’t have an onset. This is called
empty or zero onset.

Syllable
nucleus coda
V C
Empty (or Zero onset) examples:
- Eat, All, Up, Egg
These can form words on their own (but they don’t have to), they can just be syllables, but
they ALL start with a Vowel sound.

What’s the nucleus?

- Every syllable requires a nucleus. The nucleus consists of only one vowel sound (if
there’s an another sound – it’s a syllable).
- The nucleus vowel can be a monophthong (a single vowel sound), diphthong (a double
vowels sound) or triphthong.

- The nucleus vowel can be a monophthong – e.g. speak /spi:k/

- The nucleus vowel can be a diphthong – e.g. cake /keik/
- The nucleus vowel can be a triphthong – e.g. hour /aʊɚ /

- There are some syllables that consist only of a nucleus. They don’t have an onset and a
coda.
Syllable
nucleus
V
Examples of syllables that consist only of a nucleus:
eye /aɪ/ air /eə/
Nucleus with syllabic consonants
- The nucleus can sometimes be a syllabic consonant., e.g. ‘button’ /bʌt.ən/ - this word has
two syllables - bʌt and ən. The second syllable is a syllabic consonant. The main syllable is
the second syllable. The elevated schwa indicates the consonant is syllabic(!!!), forms the
core of the syllable.
- The second example of a syllabic consonant – ‘rhythm’ /rɪð.əm/
- One more example of a syllabic consonant – ‘bottle’ /bɒt.əl/ = əl is a syllabic consonant
- The most common syllabic consonants are: /l/, /r/, /m/, /n/, /Ŋ/ (engma)

What’s the coda? (open and closed syllables)

- The coda is the consonant after the nucleus. It can be one, two, three or four consonants.
- Examples of coda:
‘stop’ /stɒp/ ‘fast’ /fɑːst/ ‘comments’ /kɒm.ents/
- A syllable with a coda is called a closed syllable or checked syllable, e.g. ‘work’
/wɜːk/
** A closed syllable has a short vowel ending in a consonant. Closed syllables can contain
2 letters (at, in, on), 3 letters (ask, tug, pen), 4 letters (fish, spot, jump), 5 letters (twist,
bunch, shrug), 6 letters (shrimp, clutch, thrill), or 7 letters (scratch, stretch). The main idea
is that ALL closed syllables have only ONE VOWEL that is followed by 1 or more
consonants.

- If a syllable has no coda, we call it an open syllable or a free syllable, e.g. ‘try’ /traɪ/
‘free’ /fri:/
**An open syllable is a syllable that ends with a vowel sound. Typically, an open syllable
will be pronounced with a long vowel sound.

Syllable
onset nucleus
C V

- In English, all onset consonants are allowed as syllable codas, apart from /h/

EXAMPLES OF SYLLABLES
- only has a nucleus

Syllable
onset nucleus coda
C V C
‘I’
/aɪ/

- onset + nucleus

‘My’
/m/ + /aɪ/

- nucleus + coda
‘ice’
/aɪ/ + /s/
- onset + nucleus + coda ‘mice’
/m/ + /aɪ/ + /s/