Definition of Trisyllables-Polysyllables

One of the ways to classify words is from the number of syllables they contain. Those that have a single syllable are monosyllables, at most, three, with or col. Those that have 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 rules of accentuation, trisyllable words can have three types of diacritical accent (with accent mark). Thus, an acute trisyllable and accented word could be inclusion or champion. A flat word trisyllable and accented would be difficult, stock exchange 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), octosyllables 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 word compound).

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 one's own knowledge. Words can be classified in several ways: by the number of syllables, by their function in the language, by its origin, by its typology (simple, compound or derived), by its content (lexical or grammatical), etc.

If we take as a reference the word trisyllable "playful”, We are dealing 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.

The 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 the syllables are in turn divided into lexemes and morphemes.

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