A theoretical-methodological starting point of the study is the relation of symmetry and asymmetry of language-semiotic units initiating two central semiotic substances – iconic-symbolic (with the symmetry between form and content) and arbitrary (with the “inherited” symmetry but predominantly with the asymmetry between form and content) semiotic principle from which basic binary oppositions in the language system creating intersection sets (motivating character – absence of motivation, associativeness – linearity, paradigmatic – syntagmatic nature, simultaneity – successiveness, etc.) are derived. Based on statistical research, the relation between symmetry and asymmetry is studied at “the lowest” surface of the language structure, namely between the syllable, a complex phonic unit from the area of form, and the morpheme, the smallest semantic unit of the language system. The examined material (4924 syllables and 6113 morphemes and sub-morphemes in a continual text) has shown that in the contemporary Slovak there is about one quarter of syllables in the symmetric relation with the morphemes.
The paper analyzes the criteria for the determination of the syllabic boundary in consonant clusters in the intersonantic position of three-syllable words (material base is standard Slovak), while the applicability and „weight” of individual criteria for the determination of syllable boundaries, as well as their „cooperative” and „contradicting” character, are manifested. The interpretative procedure is realized on the abstract level of phonic units, on which three groups of nonsonants (resonant, noise occlusives and noise fricatives) are determined. As a result, a limited number of model combinations of examined consonant (nonsonant) clusters has arisen. This kind of analysis proceeds from a closer interconnection between differentiated levels of individual and universal in phonic units according to J. Sabol’s synthetic phonological theory.
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