Abstract:
Corpus planning is involved with creating standard for a language such as
spelling, grammar or creating dictionaries. It is a deliberate effort to influence
the structure of the language. This study intends to analyse the word dividing
rules of written Sinhalese. Data were collected from the written records
published time to time by the government on word dividing rules in the latter
part of the 20th century. Communication is the major function of language and
the effective communication relies on words. The word is a single distinct
meaningful element of speech or writing which may consist of a sound, a
combination of sounds, a single morpheme or a combination of morphemes.
When there were no word dividing rules, writers, publishers, teachers and
students used to divide the words as they desire. It influenced badly on the
standard of Sinhalese language. So, some experts in the Sinhalese language
decided to introduce some rules for it. As the results of their discussions they
decided to implement some acceptable word dividing rules in the written
Sinhalese. Then they made some state documents including those rules. Those
documents were revised from time to time and new documents were created. The
major objective of this study is to comparatively analyse those documents and to
forward a new proposal for the word dividing rules.
