Synalophytes
Synaloiphe (from Greek συναλοιφή, “fusion”, from syn aleiphein “smear together”) or synaloephe , also synalophe , denotes in ancient and Romanesque poetry and art prose the blending of an ending vowel with the beginning of the following word to form a diphthong . For example, the phrase quantōque animālia ( Ovid , Metamorphoses I, 464) was spoken quantōqu e animālia . This also applies if the first word ends in "m" or the second begins with "h".
The synalophah was developed in ancient Greek poetry, where it was used to keep the meter .
Related stylistic means are the metrically conditioned elision , the krasis , the synicese , which affects different syllables within a word, and the syneresis . The definition and usage of these terms often overlap. In Italian , for example, Synaloiphe, which only affects pronunciation, and Elision, which is marked in orthography by an apostrophe , are two different figures, while in English Synaloiphe also denotes the orthographic figure ( t'attain instead of to attain ).
A related technique is episynaloiphe , a fusion of two vowels within a word (for example, Phæton instead of Phaëton ). The opposite to this, so the separate debate of two vowels is diaeresis (also Dialoiphe or Dialephe).
rhetoric
In grammar and rhetoric , synaloiphe ( Latin "deletio") is often listed as a figure under the umbrella term metaplasm .
Quintilian recommends Synaloiphe to avoid a hiatus in order to favor a "softer" reproduction of the "period". Donatus defines the synaloiphe as a “soft” meeting of two “competing” vowels and distinguishes it from the ecthlipsis, the hard meeting between consonants and a vowel.
So, according to Mosellanus, the famous sentence of the Virgilian Aeneid (1.3): multum seine et terris iactatus et alto, ( which drifted for a long time through the sea and lands ) should be rendered like this: mult'ill'et terris iactatus et alto ... Ekthlipsis in this one Example would be the first apostrophe, the second synalophah.
Romance languages, modern Greek
Even in the poems of the new Romance languages and also in modern Greek , meaningful scandals without synalophas are impossible. In Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese poetry, almost every line of verse contains examples.
English
In English , synaloiphe is usually understood as a “ growing together” of two words with the “loss of a syllable” (for example t'attain instead of to attain ). In the last decade of the sixteenth century the synalophah was particularly popular and there were also forms such as yare (instead of you are ). But also forms in which a vowel is dropped after a consonant, such as is't (instead of is it ), are called synalophas.
Shakespeare makes extensive use of this character in his later dramas, both to keep the meter and to increase the rhetorical effect. For example, when Cominius says in Coriolanus , Take't: 'tis yours. What is't? (I.9.80), the tempo is much faster than in Take it; it is yours. What is it?
When the elidated form has become standard ( can't for cannot ) it is usually called "contraction" in English.
Remarks
- ↑ a b Cf. Aelius Donatus , Donati artes grammaticae in: Grammatici Latini IV , 7 vol. et 1 suppl. ed. H. Keil, Leipzig 1855/80
- ↑ Cf. Isidore de Sevilla , Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX. Ed. WM Lindsay. 2 vols. Oxford, 1911
- ↑ See Quintilian , Institutio oratoria . Trans. HE Butler. Loeb Classical Library, 1920-22
- ↑ See Petrus Mosellanus , De schematibus et tropis tabulae . Nuremberg, 1540
- ↑ See Astley Cooper Partridge, Tudor to Augustan English: a study in syntax and style from Caxton to Johnson . London: German, 1969
- ^ A b See Sister Miriam Joseph, Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language . New York: Columbia UP, 1947; rpt. New York: Hafner Publications, 1966; rpt. Paul Dry Books, 2005