Re: What dictionaries?
- From: Farhad <fvafajoo@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2007 18:26:27 -0000
On Sep 29, 2:20 am, "Søren O(lsen)" <soere...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yesterday, I had to find out where to divide the word "knowledge" (the
line break occured in the middle of this word).
Oxford Advandced Learner's Dictionary of Current English says "knowl--
edge"
But another version of the same dictionary says "know--ledge"
Websters says "knowl--edge" - so does Longman's
Are there discrepancies in the way different dictionaries handle word
division?
In that case, which dictionary should I trust?
Longman and Webster are right. You know why? A syllable is made of at
least a vowel. The vowel may follow and/or precede a limited number of
consonants. In other words, there are some consonants that come before
the vowel and some consonants after the vowel. For example, the word
"part" is made up of a consonant before the /a/ vowel and two
consonants after it. One can designate it with CVCC, where C stands
for consonant and V stands for vowel. And, also, let's call the vowel
the "nucleus of the syllable; the pre-consonant(s) the onset of the
syllable; and the consonant(s) following the vowel the coda. Now,
let's examine the word "knowledge". It has two vowels; hence, it is
made up of two syllables. You may syllabify it in of the two ways
below:
1. Know.ledge
2. Knowl.edge
In 1, the first syllable has no coda. In 2, the second syllable has no
onset. The question is: Is it better for a word to have a coda or an
onset if only one is to be chosen? The answer is: Coda.
Farhad
.
- References:
- What dictionaries?
- From: Søren O(lsen)
- Re: What dictionaries?
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