Heavy syllable
A heavy syllable is a syllable containing more than one morae. Inversely, a light syllable is a syllable of one mora, while a superheavy syllable contains at least three.
Generally, this means the rime of the syllable branches, but this depends on whether the coda functions as moraic within the given language.
Examples
- In Japanese, any syllable containing the moraic nasal ん N is necessarily heavy, as well as the syllable preceding a geminated consonant.