Minor syllable
Primarily in Austroasiatic languages (also known as Mon–Khmer), in a typical word a minor syllable is a reduced (minor) syllable followed by a full tonic or stressed syllable. The minor syllable may be of the form or , with a reduced vowel, as in colloquial Khmer, or of the form with no vowel at all, as in Mlabri "navel" (minor syllable ) and "underneath" (minor syllable ), and Khasi "rule" (minor syllable ), "syrwet" "sign" (minor syllable ), "transform" (minor syllable ), "seed" (minor syllable ) and "tyngkai" "conserve" (minor syllable ). This iambic pattern is sometimes called sesquisyllabic (lit. 'one and a half syllables '), a term coined by the American linguist James Matisoff in 1973 (Matisoff 1973:86). Sometimes minor syllables are introduced by language contact. Many Chamic languages as well as Burmese have developed minor syllables from contact with Mon-Khmer family. In Burmese, minor syllables have the form , with no consonant clusters allowed in the syllable onset, no syllable coda, and no tone. Recent reconstructions of Proto-Tai and Old Chinese also include sesquisyllabic roots with minor syllables, as transitional forms between fully disyllabic words and the monosyllabic words found in modern Tai languages and modern Chinese.