The series Quantitative Linguistics publishes books on all aspects of quantitative methods and models in linguistics, text analysis and related research fields. Specifically, the scope of the series covers the whole spectrum of theoretical and empirical research, ultimately striving for an exact mathematical formulation and empirical testing of hypotheses: observation and description of linguistic data, application of methods and models, discussion of methodological and epistemological issues, modelling of language and text phenomena.

The series Quantitative Linguistics publishes books on all aspects of quantitative methods and models in linguistics, text analysis and related research fields. Specifically, the scope of the series covers the whole spectrum of theoretical and empirical research, ultimately striving for an exact mathematical formulation and empirical testing of hypotheses: observation and description of linguistic data, application of methods and models, discussion of methodological and epistemological issues, modelling of language and text phenomena.

The series Quantitative Linguistics publishes books on all aspects of quantitative methods and models in linguistics, text analysis and related research fields. Specifically, the scope of the series covers the whole spectrum of theoretical and empirical research, ultimately striving for an exact mathematical formulation and empirical testing of hypotheses: observation and description of linguistic data, application of methods and models, discussion of methodological and epistemological issues, modelling of language and text phenomena.

1.1 Basic syllable models The position of the syllable in linguistics is not undisputed. Mostly, the missing transparent and clear definition of this unit seems to be the major argument for its banishment from the linguistic discussion. This position is well reflected in Kohler (1966: 207), where he critically emphasizes: The syllable is very often regarded as a substantive universal in phonology; but it can be demonstrated that the syllable is either an UNNECESSARY concept, because the division of the speech chain into such units is known for other reasons, or an IMPOSSIBLE one, as any division would be arbitrary, or even a HARMFUL one, because it clashes with grammatical formatives. If the syllable has any real status in phonology, its boundaries must be discernible. This assessment has to be seen in the light of the linguistic discussion of the 1960s, regarding the priority of phonetic or phonological approaches. Moreover, taking into consideration recently dominating phonological theories (optimality theory, lexical and prosodic phonology, natural phonology, and in general “preference”-based approaches), it appears that there is no lack of suggestions regarding a proper definition of the syllable, and in particular a linguistically grounded syllable division, e.g. the determination of syllable boundaries. The fact that the syllable is in the ongoing focus of linguistics goes hand in hand with the elaboration of different models of it, which will be briefly presented in the following.