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Diaeresis
In linguistics, '''diaeresis''', or '''dieresis''', is the pronunciation of two adjacent vowels in two separate syllables rather than as a diphthong, and it is also the name of the diacritic mark ( ¨ ) used to prompt the reader to pronounce adjacent vowels in this manner.
The word ''dieresis'' comes from the Greek language|Greek noun διαίρεσις (''diaíresis'', "division," or literally, "choice between"), which derives from the verb (''diaireîn''). An example is the first two vowels in the word ''cooperate''. This word might also be spelled ''co-operate'' or, using the diaeresis, ''coöperate''.
The opposite phenomenon is known as ''synaeresis''.
Orthography
The ''dieresis'' is a diacritic mark ( '''¨''' ) used in English to indicate that two adjacent vowels are to be pronounced separately[Bringhurst, p 306.] as in ''Noël'' and ''naïve'', the names ''Zoë'' and ''Chloë'' and words like ''reënter'' and ''coöperate''. Despite its long history in English, the dieresis is decreasingly common in modern usage, though The New Yorker#Style|The New Yorker magazine[Diaeresis at the Word of Day] is a prominent exception. Dutch language|Dutch uses the same mark in a similar way, (for example ''coëfficiënt''), but as with English there is now a preference for hyphenation - so ''zeeëend'' (seaduck) is now spelled ''zee-eend''http://www.translation-services-usa.com/dutch_writing_system.shtml.
Other languages indicate phonological diaeresis with different diacritics, such as the acute accent in Spanish language|Spanish and Portuguese language|Portuguese. For example, the Portuguese words ''saia'' "skirt" and ''saía'' "I used to leave" (Brazilian Portuguese|Brazilian pronunciation) differ in that the sequence forms a diphthong in the former (synaeresis), but is a hiatus in the latter (diaeresis).
The ''dieresis'' diacritic mark is unrelated to the often identical-looking umlaut (diacritic)|umlaut in German, and the decorative "heavy metal umlaut" of bands such as Blue Öyster Cult and Motörhead.
Prosody
In prosody, diaeresis means the division made in a line or a verse when the end of a Foot (prosody)|foot
coincides with the end of a word.
See also
- Hiatus (linguistics)
- Pausa
- Synaeresis
- Syllable
- Diphthong
Notes
References
- Bringhurst, Robert (1992 2004). ''The Elements of Typographic Style, version 3.0''. Vancouver, Hartley & Marks. ISBN 0-88179-133-4.
Category:Phonetics
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Sources: StartLearningNow, Wikipedia | Usage license: GNU FDL
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