Year: 2026 | Month: November | Volume: 13 | Issue: 11 | Pages: 38-50
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52403/ijrr.20261104
Syllable Structure in English Words: Phonotactic Constraint Approach
Karana Jaya Tarigan1, Milisi Sembiring1
1Faculty of Letters, Universitas Methodist Indonesia, Medan, Indonesia
Corresponding Author: Karana Jaya Tarigan
ABSTRACT
Background: The background of this article is based on the writer’s Experian in teaching English phonetics and phonology fourth semester in fifteen years. The students feel very difficult to understand and construct onset construction in initial and coda contractions in final position in a word because of lack of phonology knowledge.
Purpose: this article aims to analyze the structure of syllable based on the theory of onset and coda.
Methodology: The method used in this article is based on phonotactic constraints that concerned with the limitation or restriction of permissible sequence of sound combination in initial, and final consonant that refer to cluster of consonants. The data analysis procedure is based on existing data in English.
Result: The result and findings that the writer come across are as follows: (a) sequences of consonant are different from clusters of consonant, (b) the sequences of phonemes are not random in English, but they have certain rules, (c) Different number of syllables are partly determined by dialectal differences.
Conclusions: what is obligatory in every English syllable is ‘nucleus’ (vowels or diphthongs) and consonant are optional in onset and coda, and the writers of this article only focus on word with one syllable.
Keywords: nucleus, onset, rhyme.
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