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Syllable

Grammar
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word

Explore this topic in depth (1)

Metre and Rhythm — Metre gives poetry an underlying pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables; rhythm is the living sound that results when a person reads it. Learn to hear the beat before naming it, and to notice how poets use regularity and variation to make language move.

Detailed Definition
Syllable is the basic unit of sound in spoken language, consisting typically of a vowel sound alone or with consonants attached, forming the building blocks of words; in poetry, syllables determine meter, rhythm, and line length, where stressed and unstressed syllables combine into feet such as iambs or trochees, and syllable count is fundamental in forms like haiku or sonnets, affecting both sound and structure.
Example
Example in poetry:
In “The Tyger,” Blake’s line “Tyger Tyger, burning bright” contains 7 syllables; Haiku traditionally uses 5-7-5 syllable structure, as in Bashō’s “Old pond / a frog jumps in / sound of water”; In iambic pentameter, each line typically has 10 syllables, as in “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”; Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers” uses alternating 8-6 syllable lines; In rap poetry like Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright,” syllable count drives rhythmic flow: “We gon’ be alright!” (6 syllables).
Additional Notes
Basic sound unit in language; fundamental to all prosody. Syllable count determines many forms (haiku, syllabic verse). Understanding syllabic structure essential for meter analysis.
Also Known As
Metrical unit Phonetic segment Sound unit Prosodic atom
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