I am learning how to divide syllables.
I have to divide hap-py because there are two of the same consonant. Why are the two s letters in the word professor not divided? Doesn't the same rule apply here?
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3It depends whether you mean phonetic syllabification or typographical syllabification. The former is complex, the latter, to an extent, arbitrary. – Barrie England Sep 08 '13 at 18:04
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4The Merriam-Webster dictionary divides "pro-fes-sor" between the two "s" letters for typographical syllabification. Do you have a reference that divides it a different way? – Peter Shor Sep 08 '13 at 18:40
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I think that the criteria should be both : - phonetic, when you pronounce the word - semantic that is : + when you have uttered "hap-" you do not know the rest "-py", "-pen", "-less" ...? + for "pro-" it could be "-active", "-letariat" ... ; for "profes-", it could be "-sion" ; it seems logical to cut at every "turning", that is pro-fes-sor There is no word starting by "profe-" not followed by "-ss"
ex-user2728
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There is ‘proferens’ … Syllabification is only semantic when possible. Mostly, typographic syllabification is somewhat arbitrary (as shown by the fact that different syllabification dictionaries have different variations in some words). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 08 '13 at 20:24
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If you try to use both criteria, you wind up with two kinds of "syllables". One of them is for spelling and the other is for sound. I would ignore the spelling kind, because any wordprocessor can hyphenate better than people normally do. Real syllables always have a central vowel, and you can't always tell where the boundaries are between syllables; they shade off rather than being sharply delimited. – John Lawler Sep 08 '13 at 21:40
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I agree, to some extent, with the remarks of Mr Janus Bahs Jacquet, and Mr John Lawler (especially with that hyphenation is somewhat arbitrary). However, to take two words from their answers, I would not cut syllab-ification (because you pronounce "bi" as a whole), from the first criterium, nor boun-daries, from the second. – ex-user2728 Sep 25 '13 at 23:46