Re: USAGE: Latin syllables

John Cowan wrote:

> Mark J. Reed scripsit:
>
> > "However, a stop a liquid count as a single consonant and go with
> > the following vowel."   There's also a note that this rule may be
> > broken for purposes of poetical meter, reverting to the general
> > "last consonant goes with the second vowel" case; thus "integrum"
> > could appear in a line of a poem where a light/heavy/light pattern
> > were called for.  Seems like cheating to me, though. :)
>
> "I don't see why poetic license should entitle a man to get something wrong."
>         --Harold Ross, original editor of the _New Yorker_
>
> Vulgar Latin apparently didn't have this rule:  TE-ne-bras (darkness.ACC)
> became in Spanish te-NEb-ra.
>
ti-NIE-bla from ti-NIE-bra from the Latin. I've never come across tenebra as a
Spanish word and it's not mentioned in my etymology dictionary.

In any case the syllable split would be te-NE-bra in Spanish.


David Barrow