Phonotactic Constraints
Phonotactic rules determine which sounds are allowed or disallowed in each part of the syllable. English allows very complicated syllables; syllables may begin with up to three consonants (as in string or splash), and occasionally end with as many as four (as in prompts). Many other languages are much more restricted; Japanese, for example, only allows /ɴ/ and a chroneme in a coda, and theoretically has no consonant clusters at all, as the onset is composed of at most one consonant.
There are languages that forbid empty onsets, such as Hebrew and Arabic (the names transliterated as "Israel", "Abraham", "Omar", "Ali" and "Abdullah", among many others, actually begin with semiconsonantic glides or with glottal or pharyngeal consonants). Conversely, some analyses of the Arrernte language of central Australia posit that no onsets are permitted at all in that language, all syllables being underlyingly of the shape VC(C).
Read more about this topic: Syllable
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