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While abstract speech representations often exploit sequenced syllable units, how exactly syllables as abstract cognitive compositional structure relate to observable patterns in the articulatory and acoustic signals remains opaque. Previous work suggests oscillatory acoustic properties link such linguistic representations to physical events. We probe this relationship by testing temporal coordination between changes in spectral energy and amplitude with syllable boundary locations through phase-locking analyses. Results for syllabic nuclei demonstrate these phase-locking values (PLVs) track syllable progression in both English and Tashlhiyt. Further, cross-language preferences for different syllable nucleus types are found to be reflected in their respective PLVs. Overall, the findings demonstrate a tight coordination between abstract syllable units and quantifiable signal properties and additionally provide novel dynamical grounding for cross-linguistic syllable nucleus preferences.