The paper explores the syllabic and segmental dimensions of phonological vowel
disorder. The independence of the two dimensions is illustrated by the case study of
an English-speaking child presenting with an impairment which can be shown to have
a specifically syllabic basis. His production of adult long vowels displays three main
patterns of deviance – shortening, bisyllabification and the hardening of a target off-glide to a stop. Viewed phonemically, these patterns appear as unconnected
substitutions and distortions. Viewed syllabically, however, they can be traced to a
single underlying deficit, namely a failure to secure the complex nuclear structure
necessary for the coding of vowel length contrasts.