Musical Evidence for Syllabification of Highly Moraic Structures in English

This study uses musical data as evidence for syllabication patterns for native English speakers. Our research seeks evidence from musical pitches in songs by American singer-songwriters that syllables with a diphthong and a liquid in their rime undergo bi-syllabification at a rate contrastive to other syllables. The study concludes that variations exist between individuals, some of whom have a contrast between extremely heavy syllables and others of whom do not. Furthermore, the study addresses the influence of part of speech on vowel production and thus syllabification, concluding that certain diphthongs are reduced to monophthongs within function words but not content words.