The division between onsets and rimes in English syllables

Linguistic and psycholinguistic evidence suggests that the English syllable has two main parts-an onset (initial consonant or cluster) and a rime (vowel and any following consonants). For example, subjects learn manipulations that respect the unity of onsets and rimes more easily than manipulations that do not. The present results showed that these findings held for real words as well as for nonwords and for three-consonant onsets as well as for one- and two-consonant onsets. The strength of the onset/rime division did not vary with the phonetic category of the prevocalic consonant. Finally, although college students learned a word game involving the analysis of syllables more quickly than did 8-year-olds, the two groups showed similar effects of syllable structure.