linguistic:voice_change
Transcription

In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the fullstop ⟨. ⟩ marks syllable breaks, as in the word "astronomical" ⟨ /ˌæs.trə.ˈnɒm.ɪk.əl/ ⟩.

In practice, however, IPA transcription is typically divided into words by spaces, and often these spaces are also understood to be syllable breaks. In addition, the stress mark ⟨ ˈ ⟩ is placed immediately before a stressed syllable, and when the stressed syllable is in the middle of a word, in practice, the stress mark also marks a syllable break, for example in the word "understood" ⟨ /ʌndərˈstʊd/ ⟩ (though the syllable boundary may still be explicitly marked with a full stop, e.g. ⟨ /ʌn.dər.ˈstʊd/ ⟩).

When a word space comes in the middle of a syllable (that is, when a syllable spans words), a tie bar ⟨ ‿ ⟩ can be used for liaison, as in the French combination les amis ⟨ /lɛ.z‿a.mi/ ⟩. The liaison tie is also used to join lexical words into phonological words, for example hot dog ⟨ /ˈhɒt‿dɒɡ/ ⟩.

A Greek sigma, ⟨ σ ⟩, is used as a wild card for 'syllable', and a dollar/peso sign, ⟨ $ ⟩, marks a syllable boundary where the usual fullstop might be misunderstood. For example, ⟨ σσ ⟩ is a pair of syllables, and ⟨ V$ ⟩ is a syllable-final vowel.