syllabication

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Definitions (3)

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  1. The formation of syllables; especially, the division of a word into its constituent syllabic parts in writing and printing. The division of a word of more than one syllable into separate syllables is in great measure an artificial process, since a consonant intervening between two vowels is usually (see nnder syllable) to be reckoned as belonging to either one of them not less properly than to the other. This is especially true of the continuable consonants, the semivowels and the fricatives (thus, follow, arrow, ever, lesser, ashes, etc.); a mute, particularly a surd mute (p, t, k), has more claim to go with the following vowel, because a mute is much more distinctly audible upon a following than after a preceding vowel (in tea than in ate). We tend also to reckon such a consonant to the vowel of whose force and pitch it seems most to partake; and, along vowel being regularly a diminuendo utterance, the strength of impulse falling off before it is ended, a following consonant seems naturally to belong to the vowel that succeeds (so dai-ly, ei-ther, ea-sy, etc.); on the other hand, a consonant of any kind after a short accented vowel so shares the latter's mode of utterance as to be naturally and properly combined with it: thus, bit-er (bitter), tak-l (tackle), hon-est, etc. When two or more actually pronounced consonants come between vowels, it makes a difference whether they are or are not such as readily in our practice combine as initials before a vowel: thus, as we say ply, we divide supply into su-plī, not sup-lī; but subject only into sub-jekt. As for syllabication in printing (when a word has to be broken at the end of a line), that is a different and more difficult matter, partly because many silent consonants (especially in the case of doubled consonants) have to be dealt with; it also pays much regard to the history of a word, dividing this generally, so far as possible, into the parts of which it is etymologically composed; and it has some arbitrary and indefensible usages, such as the invariable separation of -ing, by which we get such offenses against true pronunciation as rag-ing, fac-ing, instead of ra-ging, fa-cing; and even mixt-ure, junct-ure, instead of mix-ture, junc-ture, owing to the notion that -ure rather than -ture is the ending.

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Examples

  • A principle of euphony, or affinity of syllabication, might be applied in the abbreviation of a few of this class of generic words: as Eo, —  Memoirs of 30 Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers
  • That new words, however compounded, carried these meanings to the Indian ear, and were understood by it in all possible forms of accretion and syllabication. —  Memoirs of 30 Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers
  • "I thought you didn't know what was happening at Broadlands." —  Cry Mercy Cry Love
  • Rapid syllabication is also a characteristic of the song of the witches in the scene on the Brocken; but the witches sing in octaves and fifths except when they kneel to do homage to Mefistofele; then their chant sounds like the responses to John of Leyden's prayer by the mutinous soldiers brought to their knees in "Le Prophθte." —  A Book of Operas Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music
  • In older dictionaries the words are syllabified mainly to help in pronouncing them; latterly, syllabication has been used largely to find where a word can be hyphenated at the end of a line of text, though, judging by today's newspapers and magazines, one would be sore put to believe that a dictionary had ever been within the grasp of their editors, proofreaders, or the programmers who wrote the hyphenation programs for the automatic typesetting many of them now employ. —  VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XV No 1
 

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