Syllable as a unit of speech recognition

Basic problems involved in automatic recognition of continuous speech are discussed with reference to the recently developed template matching technique using dynamic programming. Irregularities in phonetic manifestations of phonemes are discussed and it is argued that the syllable, phonologically redefined, will serve as the effective minimal unit in the time domain. English syllable structures are discussed from this point of view using the notions of "syllable features" and "vowel affinity."