The CUNY Conference on the Syllable has many presentations concerning what we might broadly call “paraphonological phenomena,” by which we mean phenomena of any kind that seem to make use of phonological representations.
Kharmalov and Cote, in their poster at the CUNY Conference on the Syllable, showed that different experimental tasks yield different syllabifications, even within subjects and using the same materials. Might this reflect the fact that we syllabify phonological representations in different ways for different tasks? Not only might the phonologists’ syllables not be the same as the phoneticians’, but in fact phoneticians might be working with different syllabifications depending on what their subjects are doing. Of course, it might also be true that syllables are different at different levels within the phonology proper.
Speech production and planning. Shattuck-Hufnagel has argued, on the basis of a broad range of data, if syllable-sized units play a role in production at all, it is in terms of stored abstract motor-control plans that are retrieved in the later stages of sound-level production planning, and subsequently adjusted to fit their prosodic contexts. She reviewed evidence from a range of sources, such as speech error patterns, rhythmic timing adjustment and cross-word-boundary consonant releases.
Singing.Dell has shown that singing is a wonderful example of a paraphonological phenomenon that not only makes reference to syllable,syllables, but can manipulate syllables for the sole purpose of creating a successful allignment of song and speech. There is a serious question whether or not languages ever use linguistic units other than the syllable for aligning song. Click here for this question and threads in response to it.
Reading. Liberman and others have shown that there is reason to believe that syllables play a role in learning to read. Gnanadesikan's presentation at the Syllable Conference explored that notion more thoroughly.
Frequency and priming effects. Joana Cholin has argued that syllables are stored in long term memory, as evidenced by frequency and priming effects.
McGurk effect.Ali et al argue that studies of the McGurk effect throw light on the internal structure of the syllable. (By the way, Wikipedia has an interesting page on the McGurk effect.)
Listening to languages other than your own.Ali et al also argue that Anglophone perceptions of Arabic also reveal syllable structure.
Word games. Numerous authors have justified various theories of syllable structure on ludlings.