Syllables and Syllabic Verse
Poetry Talks #2
A syllable is a segment of language that consists of a vowel that is pronounced and, sometimes, the consonants immediately preceding or following. A word can be a single syllable or it can be consisting of more syllables.
Examples:
Red: One syllable that consists of the pronounced vowel <e>, the precedent consonant <r>, and the following consonant <d>. Red is a monosyllabic word because the word itself consists of only one syllable.
Story: Sto-ry
Two syllables: “Sto-” one syllable consisting of one pronounced vowel (<o>) and its two preceding consonants(<s>, <t>). “-ry” one syllable consisting of one pronounced vowel (<y>) and its preceding consonant (<r>).
“Story” is a disyllabic word because it consists of two syllables. *
(In our upcoming poetry workshops we will be more specific and we will provide more information and tools that will help you with syllables.)
Some languages are syllable-timed, which means that the perceived duration of the syllables is roughly equal, while other languages, such as the English, are stress-timed, which means that the perceived time between stressed syllables is equal. We will elaborate on stress in future posts so, for now, let’s just focus on syllables…
