Re: Determining Syllables

I did find some modifications to the basic Flesch/syllable computation ...
1.. Ys are always treated as a vowel. This leads to errors in some words.
For example, BEYOND has one syllable per the rules you are implementing.
This is a case when Y is not a vowel and BEYOND actually has 2 syllables.
2.. Es at the end of words count as vowels. This leads to errors in many
words. For example, ROLE has two syllables per the rules you are
implementing. The E is silent and ROLE actually has 1 syllable.
Here are changes to the standard rules that attempt to improve the
heuristic.

a.. Y is only a vowel when it is the last character of a word. This does
not fix all problems, because sometimes Y is a vowel when it is in the
middle of a word such as MYTH or GYM.
b.. An E that is the last character of a word does not count as a vowel.
I'll let you know if I come up with anything better.

pemo


>"Arthur J. O'Dwyer" <ajo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:Pine.LNX.4.60-041.0508041253180.4135@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

>...

>
> Really? One of the inputs to the Flesch readability formula /is/ the
> number of syllables in the text. So if you can find a program that claims
> to accurately compute Flesch scores, go with it! (I doubt such programs
> exist, though. A Google search turned up Flesh,
> http://jack.gravco.com/flesh.html, but it thinks "birthday" has one
> syllable, so I didn't bother investigating any further.)
>
> Actually, given the application to Flesch readability computations, I
> might be interested in the syllable-counting problem. If you get anything
> working, would you let me know? And I'll post here if I find anything
> clever --- but don't hold your breath.
>
> -Arthur


.

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