1 Stress and Syllable Structure in English: Approaches to Phonological Variations*

Abstract

1. What is phonological variation? We use phonological variation to refer to alternative forms that can be used for more or less similar purposes. For example, in English a word made of CVCVCV can have stress on the first syllable, as in Canada, or on the second syllable, as in banana. There is no reason why the stress pattern could not have been the other way round, i.e. for Canada to have stress on the second syllable and for banana to have stress on the first. Nor is there any reason why stress in such words cannot be all on the first syllable, or all on the second. English just happens to use both forms. Similarly, an English word can be VC, such as Ann, CVC, such as sit, or CCCVC, such as split. There is no reason why a word must use one or another form and English just happens to use all those forms. Besides variations within a language, there are also variations across different languages. For example, before the nuclear vowel Standard Chinese allows CG- but not CC-, whereas English allows both CG- and CC-. Similarly, Standard Chinese only allows [–n] and [–ŋ] after the nuclear vowel, whereas English allows many more consonants.