In
phonology, hiatus, diaeresis (), or dieresis describes the occurrence of two separate
vowel sounds in adjacent
syllables with no intervening
consonant. When two vowel sounds instead occur together as part of a single syllable, the result is called a
diphthong.
Preference
Some languages do not have diphthongs, except sometimes in rapid speech, or they have a limited number of diphthongs but also numerous vowel sequences that cannot form diphthongs and so appear in hiatus. That is the case of
Japanese,
Nuosu,
Bantu languages like
Swahili, and
Lakota. Examples are Japanese () 'blue/green', and Swahili 'purify', both with three syllables.
Avoidance
Many languages disallow or restrict hiatus and avoid it by deleting or assimilating the vowel or by adding an extra consonant.
Epenthesis
A consonant may be added between vowels (
epenthesis) to prevent hiatus. That is most often a
semivowel or a
glottal, but all kinds of other consonants can be used as well, depending on the language and the quality of the two adjacent vowels. For example, some
non-rhotic dialects of English often insert to avoid hiatus after non-high word-final or occasionally morpheme-final vowels.
Contraction
In Greek and Latin poetry, hiatus is generally avoided although it occurs in many authors under certain rules, with varying degrees of poetic licence. Hiatus may be avoided by
elision
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...
of a final vowel, occasionally ''prodelision'' (elision of initial vowel),
synizesis (pronunciation of two vowels as one without a change in spelling), or contractions such as αει->ᾷ.
Marking
Diaeresis
In
Dutch and
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, the second of two vowels in hiatus is marked with a
diacritic
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...
(or ) if otherwise that combination could be interpreted as a diphthong or as having one of the vowels silent. Examples are the Dutch word ''
poëzie'' ("poetry") and the French word ''
ambiguë'' (feminine form of ''
ambigu
Ambigu is an historical French vying game, composed of the characteristic elements of Whist, Bouillotte and Piquet. A Whist pack with the court cards removed is used, and from two to six persons may play. Each player is given an equal number of ...
'', "ambiguous"). This usage is occasionally seen in English (such as ''coöperate'', ''daïs'' and ''reëlect'') but has never been common, and over the last century, its use in such words has been dropped or replaced by the use of a hyphen except in a very few publications, notably ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
''.
Umlauts in English?
General Questions. Straight Dope Message Board. It is, however, still common in loanwords
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
such as ''naïve'' and ''Noël'' and in the proper names ''Zoë'' and ''Chloë''.
Other ways
In German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
, hiatus between monophthongs is usually written with an intervening ''h'', as in "to pull"; "to threaten". In a few words (such as ), the ''h'' represents a consonant that has become silent, but in most cases, it was added later simply to indicate the end of the stem.
Similarly, in Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...
, hiatus is written by a number of digraphs: . Some examples include "river"; "day"; "condition". The convention goes back to the Old Irish
Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writte ...
scribal tradition, but it is more consistently applied in Scottish Gaelic: (> ). However, hiatus in Old Irish was usually simply implied in certain vowel digraphs (> ), (> ).
Correption
Correption
In Latin and Greek poetry, correption ( la, correptiō , "a shortening") is the shortening of a long vowel at the end of one word before a vowel at the beginning of the next. Vowels next to each other in neighboring words are in hiatus.
Homer ...
is the shortening of a long vowel before a short vowel in hiatus.
See also
* Diphthong
* Synaeresis
* Elision
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...
* Movable nu
References
Phonetics
Vowels
Further reading
*
*
*
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