This chapter provides an overview of Slavic syllable structure from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. It begins by introducing some general phonological background on the syllable and reviewing key concepts, such as syllabification and sonority. The discussion further focuses on specific aspects of Slavic syllable structure: inventories of syllable-initial and syllable-final consonants and consonant clusters, and the composition of syllable peaks (vowels and syllabic consonants). This is done by situating patterns characteristic of Slavic in the context of cross-linguistic typology of syllable structure, as well as by highlighting common historical sources and more recently developed differences among individual Slavic languages. The chapter concludes with a short review of recent experimental and corpus work on Slavic syllable structure.

In this chapter, we move from discussing English segmentals – individual consonant and vowel sounds – to suprasegmentals, the units of sound above the level of the segment. This includes stress, pitch, and tone, and extends above individual vowel and consonants to syllables, words, phrases, and sentences. At the core of our discussion of suprasegmentals is the syllable, which can be defined as a unit of organization for sound sequences. Every word is made up of minimally one syllable; in some languages, including English, words often contain multiple syllables.

We begin the chapter by examining what we mean by 'syllable', and the components of a syllable, including the onset, nucleus, and coda. We then examine syllable inventories cross-linguistically, with a special focus on the languages that influence varieties of English. An overview of English syllable structure is then provided, with a focus on how syllable structure varies across varieties. In the final section of the chapter, you will be guided through exercises designed to check your understanding of the content of the chapter and to analyse your own English syllable inventory.

Chapter 13 begins with a definition of story and a brief overview of past theory and research.Then story structure, master-plots, and themes are discussed, using examples from well-known literature as well as from actual discourse.Different forms and uses of stories in conversation are discussed, including retold stories and stories that express or celebrate group identity.

Multilingualism is not only limited to people or communities using multiple spoken languages, and complex linguistic diversity of signing communities is often seen among signers. This chapter focuses on the special type of multilingualism of children who are acquiring both sign language(s) and spoken language(s) from their linguistic environment, also referred to as bimodal multilingualism. As sign languages and spoken languages are partly produced and received in two different modalities (visual-gestural and vocal-auditory), the multilingualism of these children involves two different modalities. This chapter discusses the bimodal multilingualism of hearing and deaf children who are acquiring both sign and spoken languages. The chapter describes the multifaceted linguistic landscape and environment of bimodal multilingual children, the access of bimodal multilingual children to different languages, and the use of different languages in a variety of social contexts. Additionally, the chapter illustrates the process of bimodal multilingual language acquisition and challenges to maintain the acquired language abilities as heritage language users, as well as the attainments and usage of hybrid linguistic resources.

The syllable and the mora as units of utterances, SPE's treatment without an explicit syllable, approaches to syllables including the syllable boundary approach, the autosegmental approach, the constituent-structure approach, and the moraic approach. Conditions on onsets and codas in various languages. Rules for syllabification in English, and some exceptional patterns.

Old Chinese refers to the Chinese language before the Qin dynasty (Mandarin: xiānqín 先秦). Unlike later periods, there is no systematic record of an entire phonology. The phonology of Old Chinese must be completely reconstructed, based on various pieces of unrelated source materials. The reconstruction of Old Chinese represents the most difficult work in the study of the Chinese historical phonology. It also should be noted that the source materials often have unclear information regarding the time and geographical locations about the language. The source materials mainly include the rhyming words of ancient poetry, the Chinese characters that share phonetic components, and reconstructions based on both the phonology of Middle Chinese, which is itself based on rhyme dictionaries with complete phonological information, and the pronunciation of modern Chinese dialects. Although Old Chinese phonology must appear first according to chronology, it would be very helpful to read Part III (Middle Chinese) first before coming back to read this part, as linguists studying Old Chinese use Middle Chinese phonology as their main reference point in the reconstruction of phonology. A good understanding of Middle Chinese phonology, and especially the terminologies involved, will benefit the reading of this part.