13

It isn't as easy as it sounds. Is it possible to come up with a well-defined set of rules that cover all possible cases?

CocoPop
  • 8,301
  • 2
  • 17
  • 38
Trident D'Gao
  • 4,252
  • 27
  • 45

3 Answers3

11

As Dima mentioned, the necessary condition is for each syllable to have one and exactly one vowel. But that's by far not sufficient. From here:

Законы слогоделения в разных языках и даже диалектах одного языка неодинаковы. Например, представители севернорусского наречия произнесут при скандировании слово “дружба” так: друж-ба. А представители южнорусского наречия – иначе: дру-жба.

В русском литературном языке деление на слоги опирается на принцип восходящей звучности. Это обозначает, что звуки в слоге (незаконченом) располагаются от наименее звучного к наиболее звучному. Если звучность условно обозначить цифрами, получится следующее:

3 – гласный звук,

2 – сонорный согласный звук,

1 – остальные (шумные) согласные звуки.

Разделение на слоги будет производится по принципу восходящей звучности: кни-га (1 2 3 - 1 3), и-на-че (3 - 2 3 - 1 3), по-ло-тно (1 3 - 2 3 - 1 2 3).

Трудности при разделении слова на слоги могут возникнуть при стечении согласных. При этом в русском литературном языке, опирающемся на московское произношение, разделение на слоги будет осуществляться с учетом следующего:

  1. Если на границе слогов рядом оказались два шумных или два сонорных звука (кроме [j]), они относятся к последующему гласному: пу-шка, и-зба, во-лна.
  1. Если в сочетании согласных первый [j], он всегда отходит к предшествующему гласному: вой-на, май-ка.
  1. В сочетании согласных, первым из которых является сонорный, а вторым – шумный, сонорный может отходить к предшествующему гласному: кон-спект, Вол-га.

So, in most cases, it's a phonetic thing. You have to feel the pronunciation of the word, its phonetic division into syllables. Above are some good guidelines, but they require a knowledge of phonetics and are not easy to apply in practice. Also, note that the rules for hyphenation (перенос, moving part of the word to the next line) are slightly different. If you're interested in them, check out these links. Hope this helped.

Update: Per Alenanno's request, here's an attempt to translate the above source:

The rules for splitting a word into syllables vary not only between languages but also between different dialects of the same language. For example, in the Northern Russian dialect, one pronounces the word дружба as друж-ба, whereas in Southern Russian, it'd be дру-жба.

In the literary Russian language, syllabification is based on the principle of increasing sonority. This means that the sounds in a syllable are arranged from least sonorous to most sonorous. If we denote sonority with numbers, we come up with the following:

3 - vowel sounds

2 - sonorant consonant sounds

1 - other (obstruent) consonant sounds

Syllabification is done according to the principle of increasing sonority: кни-га (1 2 3 - 1 3), и-на-че (3 - 2 3 - 1 3), по-ло-тно (1 3 - 2 3 - 1 2 3).

Difficulties arise in the case of consonant clusters. In literary Russian based on Muscovite pronunciation, syllabification is governed by the following rules:

  1. If on the syllable border there are two sonorants or two obstruents (except й), they go with the following vowel. пу-шка, и-зба, во-лна.
  1. If the first in the consonant group is й, it goes with the previous vowel: вой-на, май-ка.
  1. In a consonant group where the first is a sonorant and the second is an obstruent, the sonorant may join the preceding vowel. кон-спект, Вол-га.
CocoPop
  • 8,301
  • 2
  • 17
  • 38
Armen Tsirunyan
  • 5,367
  • 1
  • 30
  • 49
4

The only hard rule that I know of is that there must be one vowel per syllable.

Dima
  • 3,126
  • 1
  • 14
  • 20
2

For future reference, this is how syllables are split in Russian according to a good English language source — Terence Wade's A Comprehensive Russian Grammar, pp. 18-19:

Division into syllables

(1) Each syllable in a Russian word contains a vowel and, in most cases, consonants peripheral to it, e.g. па́спорт.

(2) Russian distinguishes 'open' syllables, which end in a vowel (го-ло-ва́) from 'closed' syllables, which end in a consonant (нос).

(3) The principles of syllabic division are different in English and Russian, cf. E doc-tor/R до́-ктор, E her-o/R ге-ро́й. Russian non-initial syllables are formed on the basis of an ascending level of 'sonority', vowels being the most sonorous letters, the voiced sonants (р, л, м, н) the next most sonorous and noise-consonants (the other sixteen consonants) the lease sonorous.

(4) In practice, this means that the syllable boundary occurs either:

(i) between a vowel and a following consonant: со-ло́-ма, сте-пно́й, ка́-ска, ко-стю́м, ста-ле-ва́р, стра-на́, о-тбро́-сить, вра-жда́ etc.;

or:

(ii) between a sonant and a following consonant (including another sonant): су́м-ка, кон-ве́рт, боль-шо́й, ка́р-та, вол-на́ чёр-ный, кар-ма́н.

Note
Non-initial syllables cannot begin with the sequence sonant + noise-consonant (this sequence is possible, however, in an initial syllable, e.g. мши́-стый). Note, however, the sequences sonant + sonant (во́-льный), consonant + consonant (ме́-сто) and noise-consonant + sonant (ме-тла́). The syllabic boundary may occur before or between two sonants (ка-рма́н or кар-ма́н, во-лна́ or вол-на́).

Syllabic division in a text

Я встал и на-де́л паль-то́. Же-на́ ре-ши́-ла, что я по-шёл за си-га-ре́-та-ми, и ве-ле́-ла не су-ту́-ли-ться при хо-дьбе́. О-на́ ска-за́-ла, что ко-гда́ я хо-жу́, то ны-ря́-ю вниз го-ло-во́й, как при-стя-жна́-я ло́-шадь. Е-щё о-на́ ска-за́-ла, что я всё вре́-мя смо-трю́ вниз, бу́-дто хо-чу́ най-ти́ на а-сфа́ль-те мо-не́-тку (Tokareva).

The author uses the word "sonant" that is a synonym for "sonorant", mainly used in historical linguistics.

Quassnoi
  • 53,460
  • 4
  • 94
  • 183
VCH250
  • 3,497
  • 1
  • 14
  • 28
  • not sure if о-тбро-сить is a good or correct way of separation, because it creates unwieldy cluster тбро which never occurs at the beginning of words and it also imprudent to split a prefix, so от-бро-сить looks much more natural, from my school years i remember that in writing we should not hyphenate single letters, and it makes sense so as to keep a word recognizable as much as possible – Баян Купи-ка Sep 10 '18 at 19:55
  • almost the same argument applies to сте-пной where what's separated is the root and which looks more natural as степ-ной, also враж-да rather than вра-жда, and a few more in the text – Баян Купи-ка Sep 10 '18 at 19:56
  • @БаянКупи-ка Are you maybe confusing the splitting of words in text with how words are split when spoken? The author of this book was an extremely well known Russian professor with massive experience. I think we should trust him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Wade – VCH250 Sep 11 '18 at 07:13
  • not sure i understand the concept of splitting when spoken and what division into syllables is useful for apart from hyphenation and why they should differ, though maybe systematic the rules seem arbitrary to me – Баян Купи-ка Sep 11 '18 at 08:48
  • Those rules are very useful for speakers of other languages. For example I'm a native English speaker. Thus I tend to want to say things like оп-ять, док-тор, дум-ать. The difference isn't huge, but if you split words after vowels, it reduces accent in Russian by quite a bit. The rules for writing are different‚ and I'm aware every Russian child learned them. But they don't seem apply to how people split words in speech. – VCH250 Sep 11 '18 at 16:13
  • russia uses open syllables, whereas English uses closed ones – VCH250 Sep 11 '18 at 16:17
  • is pronouncing о-тбро-сить really easier for a foreigner than от-бро-сить? i myself find it hard and inconvenient to pronounce, accent is usually less prominent in signing because, i believe, it, in particular, causes consonant clusters to be stretched, so how doing the opposite should help reduce it? – Баян Купи-ка Sep 11 '18 at 17:23
  • Listen to some recordings on Forvo or Викисловарь. If you listen closely, people will say о-тбро-сить when speaking at fast (normal rate). If you stress the от-part then it gets separated off, but if said quickly the rules outlined above are basically true. There will be individual variation, and perhaps отбросить isn't the best example because a Russian brain sees that as a prefix + a base, but try saying it very quickly) It's easier to end syllables on the vowel because that's the rhythm of your language, which is very different from English. Anyway, it's helped me immensely :) – VCH250 Sep 12 '18 at 09:22
  • Here's a good example— будет—I always want to split that word at the д—буд-ет. But that makes it much harder to say and not very Russian. You kind of half stall on the д, which is wrong, even if you get the soft sound right (which I do). But if you say it right—бу-дет—things are so much more smooth. we speak in syllables not in words, right?)) – VCH250 Sep 12 '18 at 09:37
  • it's good that you found a helpful method of learning but i perceive it quite differently so our points of view are likely incompatible due to difference in perspectives, in fluent speech i can't tell where people split words into syllables because they're pronounced in one go... – Баян Купи-ка Sep 12 '18 at 15:12
  • regarding будет i'd split it as бу-дет just by intuition and sense of convenience, there are not many words beginning with Е in Russian, and in those which are, E sounds like ЙЭ (this is an inviolable phonetic rule) unlike it does in будет, so if i were to split it after Д i'd have to pronounce -ет as -йэт which distorts the correct pronunciation of the word – Баян Купи-ка Sep 12 '18 at 15:12
  • actually it just messes up the stress—будет (anyway, I've earned to trust foreigners (experts) in matters of phonetics)—one's own language (in terms of phonetics) is a mystery for even the best trained natives. I think we've said too much in this message area :) I'm done. – VCH250 Sep 13 '18 at 12:48