Subj : Determining Syllables
To   : comp.programming,comp.lang.c
From : pemo
Date : Thu Aug 04 2005 06:51 pm

Does anyone know of an algorithm that can accurately determine the number of 
syllables in a given English word - esp. if that word isn't already 'known' 
by such an algorithm?

FYI, there are two approaches I'm currently considering.

One is to reduce/convert (somehow) the word into its IPA equivalent, e.g., 
'parliament' becomes 'plm()nt' (apologies if that doesn't come out too 
right!) - parsing that is, I believe, straight forward.  However, I can't 
find a program to convert English words into their IPA equivalents, and, so 
I'm currently stuck with using a dictionary - not so bad, until a word isn't 
in the dictionary I'm using!

Another approach might be to modify a good hyphenating algorithm; as I'm 
lead to believe that these usually insert a hyphen at a syllable boundary. 
However, how they do that (determine the point), and whether it's even true, 
I just don't know.

I've also had a look at the Flesch readability stuff - but it's probably not 
going to be accurate enough for what I need it for.

.