One of the ways to classify words is from the number of syllables they contain. Those that have only one syllable are monosyllables, at most, three, with or col. Those with two syllables are bisyllables, such as simple, pencil, according to, para or parrot. Those that have three syllables are called trisyllables, such as future, even, desk or resource. Finally, those with more than three syllables are, logically, polysyllables (butterfly, rotten, vehement, arteriography ...).
Accentuation in trisyllable words
According to the stress rules, trisyllable words can have three types of diacritical accent (with accent mark). Thus, a sharp word trisyllable and accented could be inclusion or champion. A flat word trisyllable and accented would be difficult, stock or portable. All three-syllable esdrújulas words are stressed, such as number, bird, music or doctor.
Polysyllables
In a strict sense, polysyllable words can be tetrasyllables or four syllables (butter or pumpkin), pentasyllables or five (greenhouse or ophthalmologist), hexasyllables or six (heterogeneous or unrecognizable), heptasyllables or seven (Anglo-American or considerably) , eight syllables or eight (electrocardiography or pseudohermaphroditism).
Exceptionally, some words are eneasyllables or nine syllables (otorhinolaryngologist or electroencephalogram) or even decasyllables or ten syllables (deoxyribonucleotide or otorhinolaryngology). As can be seen, polysyllabic words are mostly composed (by the combination of several disciplines in a term or by the combination of prefixes and suffixes that complement a compound word).
The number of syllables in words is one of the criteria for their classification
In all areas of knowledge there is a tendency to classify the content of knowledge itself. Words can be classified in various ways: by the number of syllables, by their function in the language, by their origin, by their typology (simple, compound or derived), by their content (lexical or grammatical), etc.
If we take the word trisyllable "playful" as a reference, we are faced with an adjective in its masculine form which, in turn, is a lexical word and which comes from the Latin ludus which means game or fun. This simple example reminds us that a word can be studied from several points of view.
Classification according to the number of syllables is useful for several reasons: for poetic language in order to establish the correct number of each verse or to know the internal structure of each word, since syllables are in turn divided into lexemes and morphemes.
Photos: Fotolia - vecton / oksanagrytsyuk
