Synalepha

A synalepha or synaloepha /ˌsɪnəˈliːfə/^[1] is the merging of two syllables into one, especially when it causes two words to be pronounced as one.

The original meaning in Ancient Greek is more general than modern usage and includes coalescence of vowels within a word. Similarly, synalepha most often refers to elision (as in English contraction), but it can also refer to coalescence by other metaplasms: synizesis, synaeresis or crasis.^[2]

Examples

Spanish and Italian use synalepha; this is important when counting syllables in poetry. For instance in this hendecasyllable (11-syllable line) by Garcilaso de la Vega:

Los cabellos que al oro oscurecían.

The hair that endarkened the gold.

The words que and al form one syllable when counting them because of the synalepha. The same thing happens with -ro and os-, so that the line has eleven syllables (syllable boundaries shown by a period):

Los·ca·be·llos·quea·lo·roos·cu·re·cí·an.

See also

• Metaplasm
  • Elision — Contraction (grammar)
    • Apheresis (initial)
    • Syncope (medial)
    • Apocope (final)
  • Crasis
  • Synizesis (merge into one syllable without change in writing)
  • Synaeresis — opposite Diaeresis

Notes

1. Greek συναλοιφή (or συναλιφή), from συναλείφω: συν- "together" and ἀλείφω "I anoint", "smear". Alternation between οι, ει, and ι in verb root is ablaut.
2. W. Sidney Allen, Vox Graeca, chart of "Types of vowel-junction", p. 98.