Subj : Re: Determining Syllables
To   : comp.programming
From : pemo
Date : Thu Aug 04 2005 07:40 pm

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@nospam.andrew.cmu.edu> wrote in message 
>news:Pine.LNX.4.60-041.0508041253180.4135@unix44.andrew.cmu.edu...

>...

>
>   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

.