Recent studies are showing differences in processing between
syllables and segmental phonemes by MRI.


"Our fMRI study reported in this article has
generated important results of human cortical regions
associated with the processing of syllable, which are
distinct from brain areas associated with the processing
of phonemes. In particular, we have found that the
left middle frontal cortex mediates syllabic, rather
than phonemic, level phonological processing. Phonemic
computation and phonological segmentation, on
the other hand, are subserved by the left inferior prefrontal
gyri. Whether these findings from the phonological
processing of Chinese words are generalizable
to English and other languages merits further investigation."


http://www.hku.hk/fmri/index/journals/SiokHBM2003.pdf

Distinct Brain Regions Associated With
Syllable and Phoneme
Wai Ting Siok,1* Zhen Jin,2 Paul Fletcher,3 and Li Hai Tan4
_ Human Brain Mapping 18:201–207(2003)

Suzanne