Diaeresis (prosody)


In poetic meter, diaeresis has two meanings: the separate pronunciation of the two vowels in a diphthong for the sake of meter, and a division between feet that corresponds to the division between words.
Synaeresis, the pronunciation of two vowels as a diphthong, is the opposite of the first definition.

Etymology

Diaeresis comes from the Ancient Greek noun diaíresis "taking apart" or "division", from the verb diairéō "take apart", a compound of the verb airéō "take" and the preposition diá "through".

French

In the phonology of Standard French, the letters ie are normally pronounced or except after Cr or Cl, when they indicate two syllables, or.
In some French dialects, however, diaeresis is the norm, with the two-syllable pronunciation found after any consonant. In Standard French, the pronunciation of hier varies between the two, or, depending on the context.

Greek

Diaeresis as separate pronunciation of vowels in a diphthong was first named where it occurred in the poetry of Homer.

Example

But my soul is torn about Odysseus the fiery-hearted...
In this example, diaereses are in bold. The vowels in each diaeresis are placed in separate syllables when the line is scanned:
Dactylic hexameter depends on the sequence of long and short syllables. It is composed of six feet, five of which are in two basic patterns: long-short-short or long-long.
In the scansion of the line above, long syllables are uppercase, short syllables are lowercase, and feet are divided by a vertical line. All feet in the line conform to one of the two patterns of dactylic hexameter.
If the pairs of vowels are contracted into diphthongs by synaeresis and the diphthongs are placed in one syllable each, one foot no longer follows the patterns, no matter how the line is scanned:
In Homer, compounds beginning with ἐύ- frequently contain two separate vowels. In later Greek, the two vowels form a diphthong.
The word comes from εὖ "well", the adverbial use of the neuter accusative singular of the adjective ἐύς "good".
The form with diaeresis is the original form, since the word comes from Proto-Indo-European , which is cognate with Sanskrit su-. In Proto-Greek, s between vowels became h, and later was lost.