brother of religious orders Francis a Spanish surname preserve whom God preserve grace general dated Gra. Gen1. general Ille. ilustre illustrious Illmo ilustrísimo most illustrious Inqor. inquisidor inquisitor Jhs. Jesus Jesus Jph. Joseph Joseph Jn°. Juan John John PROSODY. PROSODY treats on syllables; determines their quantity, accent, and emphasis; and establishes the laws of versification. In modern language the term accent is employed to denote the stress which is laid on one syllable in every word, in order to distinguish it from the rest; and the accented or emphatic syllable is generally acute and long. Every Spanish word contains one acute syllable only, the vowel of which sometimes is marked with the acute accent, but oftener it is not: when the vowel is so marked, the word can offer no difficulty as to its pronunciation; but in order to assist learners in discovering where the stress should be laid when there is no visible mark to direct them, the following rules may be attentively considered.* 1. Monosyllables are long: as pān, māl. 2. Dissyllables and polysyllabies ending in a vowel have commonly the penultima long; as pāño, hortělāno, Constăntinōplă, dinērŏ. N.B. In the termination isimo the antepenult is long; as ămăbilisimo, constăntisimo. The Spanish Academy not having yet fixed the rules of Spanish Prosody, this division of grammar can be but very imperfectly discussed here. |