Polysyllabic words have two or more syllables.
In order to correctly define the concept of polysyllable we will have to clarify in advance what is called a syllable . A syllable is one of the minimum divisions that make up a word . The smallest in length is the phoneme that corresponds to each letter of the alphabet. In traditional linguistics, the syllable is called a "voice stroke" because it can be pronounced by emitting a compact sound; In any case, this way of identifying it is considered obsolete today.
When a word is made up of a single syllable, it is called a monosyllable (No, two and king are three words of this type because they do not accept a division smaller than all the sounds in the word). Polysyllabic is the adjective applied to words that are made up of several syllables . Goodbye, caramel and esdrújula are three examples of polysyllabic words.
Classification of polysyllabic words
Typically, the term is used specifically when the number of syllables that make up the word is five or more , but it is important to note that all words longer than two fall into this category.
At this point it would be important to point out that, in turn, multisyllabic words can be divided into subcategories depending on the number of syllables that make them up. Thus, we can talk about disyllables (words with two syllables), trisyllables (words with three syllables), tetrasyllables (words with four syllables) , pentasyllables (words with five syllables), hexasyllables (words with six syllables) and octosyllables (words with eight syllables). syllables). Although all of them are polysyllable, this classification is generally only beginning to be used from five syllables onwards and for the previous ones use the criteria mentioned here.
The concept in examples
Some examples of multisyllabic words can be:
* Stipulation : it is a pentasyllabic word that belongs to the category of polysyllables (es-ti-pu-la-ción).
*Extralimited : It is classified as a hexasyllabic word and also belongs to this category (ex-tra-li-mi-ta-do).
* Aerodynamics : having seven syllables, it is polysyllable (ae-ro-di-ná-mi-ca).
* Latin American : it is polysyllabic because it has eight syllables (la-ti-no-a-me-ri-ca-no).
* Electroencephalogram : it is a word of nine syllables, therefore, polysyllable (e-lec-tro-en-ce-fa-lo-gra-ma).
* Otorhinolaryngology : it is a word made up of ten syllables that also belongs to this category (o-to-rri-no-la-rin-go-lo-gí-a).
There are different types of multisyllabic words.
How to separate multisyllabic words into syllables
Knowing how words are separated into syllables is very important in written language because, in our language , we must "cut" the words that do not fit into the line without interrupting the syllable. That is to say, we cannot decide to place in the top line the number of letters that fit there, but rather the number that the spelling rules allow us to do.
In that sense, the rules of writing require us that if when we are writing we must cut a word, we do so at the end of a syllable and never in the middle. For example, "Stipulation" could be cut only in the following ways: stipulation, stipulation, stipulation or stipulation; but not as e-stipulation, stipulation or stipulation.
Accentuation rules
It is important to keep in mind that the polysyllable rating of a word does not indicate anything regarding its accentuation or the location of the syllable with an accent that would define its name according to the accent . This means that a polysyllabic word can be acute, grave, esdrújula or sobresdrújula.
As you already know in our language there are clear rules that determine the accentuation of words. In a word, the stressed syllable is the one that carries the lexical accent and is where the greatest intensity of the word is deposited. In multisyllabic words this accent can be tacit or indicated with a mark (tilde).
As is evident, depending on the position of the stressed syllable in a word, the classification varies: acute (the phonetic stress is on the last syllable), grave (the phonetic stress falls on the penultimate syllable) or esdrújulas (the stress falls on the penultimate syllable). ) or overesdrújulas (the stress falls on the penultimate syllable).
It is important to note that two words can be multisyllabic and share classification based on their accentuation, even if one of them has an accent and the other does not. Admirar and sock are two acute polysyllabic words.