释义 |
syllabic, a. and n.|sɪˈlæbɪk| [ad. med.L. syllabicus (Priscian), ad. Gr. συλλαβικός, f. συλλαβή syllable n. Cf. F. syllabique (1704 in Hatz.-Darm.), It. sillabico, Sp. silábico.] A. adj. 1. a. Of, pertaining or relating to, a syllable or syllables.
1755Johnson, Syllabick, relating to syllables. 1782V. Knox Ess. xxiii. (1819) I. 132 There are many passages..which, if you attend to the accentual and not to the syllabic quantity, may be scanned like hexameter verses. 1795Mason Ch. Mus. ii. 95 In the responses.., which are noted for various voices, this syllabic distinction is sufficiently attended to. 1852Proc. Philol. Soc. V. 156 In English pronunciation syllabic quantity is..imperfectly marked. 1860Adler Prov. Poet. i. 6 Versification founded on a combination of the rhyme with the syllabic accent. 1892T. R. Lounsbury Stud. Chaucer I. iii. 286 In his endeavors to impart to the line syllabic regularity. b. Forming or constituting a syllable. syllabic augment: see augment n. 2.
1728Chambers Cycl. s.v., The first [augment] call'd Syllabic, which is when the Word is increas'd by a Syllable. 1837G. Phillips Syriac Gram. 25 Whenever the noun in its primitive form receives a syllabic augment. 1888Sweet Engl. Sounds §21 A sound which can form a syllable by itself is called syllabic... The distinction between syllabic and non-syllabic is generally parallel to that between vowel and consonant. But..‘vowellike’ or ‘liquid’ voiced consonants..are often also syllabic... Even voiceless consonants can be syllabic, as in pst, where the s is syllabically equivalent to a vowel. 1908― Sounds of English § 149 In such a word as little litl the second l is so much more syllabic than the preceding voiceless stop that it assumes syllabic function. c. Denoting a syllable; consisting of signs denoting syllables.
1804J. Barrow Trav. in China vi. 270 [The Manchu writing-system] is alphabetic, or, more properly speaking, syllabic. 1838P. Du Ponceau Chinese System of Writing p. xii, Syllabic alphabets, besides, have considerable advantages over those that we make use of. 1865Tylor Early Hist. Man. v. 104 Writing his language in syllabic signs. 1875P. Le P. Renouf Egypt. Gram. 1 All other Egyptian phonetic signs have syllabic values. 1884W. Wright Empire Hittites 70 A syllabic writing evidently of immense antiquity. d. Of verse or metre: based upon or determined by the number of syllables in a line, etc.
1923L. Abercrombie in Times Lit. Suppl. 12 Apr. 247/1 English metre, according to many theorists, is neither syllabic nor quantitative, but simply accentual. 1965A. F. Scott Current Lit. Terms 282 The determining feature of syllabic verse is the number of syllables in the line, not the stress nor the quantity. 1970G. S. Fraser Metre, Rhyme & Free Verse iv. 50 Purely syllabic metrics seems..not suitable to the prosody of English as a natural language. 2. a. Applied to singing, or a tune, in which each syllable is sung to one note (i.e. with no slurs or runs).
1789Burney Hist. Mus. III. 389 Nothing now but syllabic and unisonous psalmody was authorised in the Church. 1834K. H. Digby Mores Cath. v. iii. 75 That syllabic composition of song in Pindar's style. b. Pronounced syllable by syllable; uttered with distinct separation of syllables.
1890S. J. Duncan Social Departure xiii. 122 His English was careful, select, syllabic. 1899Allbutt's Syst. Med. VII. 64 ‘Scanning’, ‘staccato’, or ‘syllabic’ speech is one of the symptoms of [disseminate sclerosis]. 3. Consisting of mere syllables or words; verbal. rare—1.
1850P. Crook War of Hats 35 The mere syllabic air Of words in formal orisons bestowed. B. n. (elliptical use of the adj.) 1. A syllabic sign; a character denoting a syllable.
1880Encycl. Brit. XI. 800/2 A determinative [attached to an ideographic sign] often indicates to the reader..this radical change in the use of the sign. In this case the sign is said to be employed as a syllabic. 1885Athenæum 4 Apr. 436/3 Eight syllabic signs..are verified by their close accordance of form with Cypriote syllabics. 2. A syllabic sound; a vocal sound capable by itself of forming a syllable, or constituting the essential element of a syllable.
1890Sweet Primer of Phonetics §150 Hence the ear learns to divide a breath-group into groups of vowels (or vowel-equivalents), each flanked by consonants (or consonant-equivalents)—or, in other words, into syllable-formers or syllabics, and non-syllabics, each of these groups constituting a syllable. 1908― Sounds of English §149 The more sonorous a sound is, the more easily it assumes the function of a syllabic. 3. A syllabic utterance; a word or phrase pronounced syllable by syllable. nonce-use.
1893T. B. Foreman Trip to Spain 30 A welcome relief to the hard syllabics, ‘Splendid!’ ‘Beautiful!’ 4. pl. Syllabic verse.
1964Times Lit. Suppl. 16 Jan. 53/4 Syllabics are as legitimate a metrical device as any other. Ibid., Syllabics accommodate speech rhythms... MacBeth and..B.S. Johnson, independently discovered this quality of syllabic metre a few years ago. 1977Ibid. 8 Apr. 428/2 The line in Bridges's use of neo-Miltonic syllabics is fundamentally of twelve syllables. |