Phonetics and Phonology MOC

Heavy syllable

A heavy syllable is a syllable containing more than one morae. Inversely, a light syllable is a syllable of one mora, while a superheavy syllable contains at least three.

Generally, this means the rime of the syllable branches, but this depends on whether the coda functions as moraic within the given language.

Examples

• In Japanese, any syllable containing the moraic nasal ん N is necessarily heavy, as well as the syllable preceding a geminated consonant.

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