The Longest Syllables in English
This is a spin-off from the other article: The Most Frequent Syllables in English
The percentage is the occurrence rate in all syllables counted, the other number is its log (which I think is a readable measure of frequency).
These samples give a good illustration of the “sonority principle” in English phonology, where the syllable is like a small hill — acoustic energy climbs up to a crest — then rolls down again. Except, English seems to violate it at the same time, with onset clusters ‘sp’, ‘st’, and ‘sk’ where a sibilant is placed before a stop. Compare these with Greek words like ‘psyche’, ‘tsatsiki’, and ‘xylophone’, where the phonemes line up in the “correct order”.
Why would English do this? My guess is placing an oral stop closer to the vowel makes its place of articulation more identifiable from the F1 and F2 transitions within the vowel. That’s why you can still “hear” the stop even when everything left of the vowel boundary is removed. But then, in running speech these stops may never achieve full closure, and instead just blend with the following approximant into a long fricative anyway…
