resyllabify

Resyllabification is the reallocation of speech segments into syllables, typically involving the transfer of a consonant from the coda of one syllable to the onset of the following syllable. This resegmentation can occur in fluent or connected speech and is influenced by prosody, speaking rate, and phonotactic constraints. It may happen within a word or across word boundaries, and it can alter the perceived syllable structure without changing the underlying phonetic inventory.

Two common contexts are within-word resyllabification and cross-word resyllabification. Within a word, resyllabification can occur when morpheme boundaries or phonotactic pressures favor reassigning a final consonant to create a simpler or more natural onset for the next syllable. Cross-word resyllabification is well known in languages with liaison, such as French, where a normally silent consonant at the end of one word is pronounced to begin the next word’s syllable. For example, in les enfants, the final s of les contributes as an onset to the following syllable, producing a connecting pronunciation [le.z‿ɑ̃.fɑ̃].

The phenomenon is important in phonology, speech perception, and speech technology. It affects how syllables are counted, how stress and rhythm are interpreted, and how algorithms for speech synthesis and recognition segment continuous speech. Related concepts include syllabification, liaison, and morphophonemic alternations.