Question

How many syllables are there in two words satisfaction and solicitation?
a. One and two respectively
b. Two and three respectively
c. Three and four respectively
d. Four and five respectively

Answer 1

Hint: A syllable is a unit of the pronunciation of vowel sounds in a word. To count the syllables in a word, we take into account the vowel sounds, not the vowel letters.

Complete step-by-step answer:

Syllables are the phonological building blocks of a word in English. It helps us know the correct pronunciation of the word and its number of speech sounds.
Example: The word ‘dog’ has one syllable in it as there is only one vowel sound; while ‘hungry’, with two vowel sounds, has two syllables.
That being the case, lets now count the vowels in the given words ‘satisfaction’ and ‘solicitation’. Though there are three vowel letters in ‘satisfaction’ (a,i,o), it does not indicate that the word has three syllables. Instead, we now break the word and pronounce it well to understand the proper vowel speech sounds. Thus, ‘satisfaction’ has four syllables when we divide it as sat-is-fac-tion.
Similarly, the term ‘solicitation’ can also be divided as so-li-ci-ta-tion. Thus, here we get five syllables. The right answer is therefore option d.

Note: For words ending with the suffix –tion, it should be counted as a syllable as we have done here. Similarly, in words like ‘employ’, the ‘o’ and ‘y’ together give one sound and hence become one syllable.