Hello Hello I have a question para ti
I am going over syllables in the reference section and there is a rule that I can't figure out. 1) The digraphs ch, ll, rr, qu and gu (before e and i) form a single syllable. However, the rr is split if it is clear from its etymology, as in inter-relacionado.
I looked up etymology and it said the study of how words change throughout history. I'm not sure how we figure out when to split them. I don't know the history of every spanish word. jejejejejeje
3 Answers
Hi Kyle. Hhmm. Interesting. The word digraph, in case you don’t know, means that there are two letters together that represent one sound. For example, in English, th is not a blend, like bl or st, each of which are two consonantal sounds pronounced right next to each other that form (along with a vowel sound) one syllable. Th may have two letters (which is unfortunate, because, in some ways, this can cause confusion) but it only has one sound. (Actually, it has only one sound at a time, so to speak. But there are two possibilities, because it can be pronounced as either a voiced or a voiceless interdental fricative. If you say these two words out loud, you can hear and feel the difference: thy and thigh.)
Ch, in both Spanish and English, forms a single consonantal sound. (Forms a single syllable? No, not unless you have some vowel sound with it.) In the not-too-distant past, ch was not a digraph in Spanish because it was considered one letter in the 30-letter alphabet of Spanish. That has since changed. So now, it’s a digraph, just like it is in English. (Technically, in linguistics, it’s a voiceless palatal affricate, which is really the fusion of a plosive and a fricative, but it’s still considered one consonant. [Not one syllable, by the way.])
Rr is interesting is Spanish. It used to be one double r, or one letter. Usually, in Spanish (as opposed to English, in which the letter r is rhotacized), in terms of pronunciation, an r at the beginning of a word or an rr elsewhere is trilled. Otherwise, it’s flapped. Certainly, you’ve heard the difference. The best example might be the two words perro and pero. You know what I mean? The first one will sound as if the r is “rolled” for a longer time. Yes, there are exceptions, like in the word interrelacionado, as you noted. I cannot imagine what this has to do with etymology, though. Morphology, yes. Ter forms one syllable, and the next one is re, so the two rs, although right next to each other, cannot be trilled in pronunciation, because it is not an occurrence of a double r; but rather, one r at the end of one syllable and another r at the start of the next.
I hope this was helpful.
Kudos to both brian5764 and rogspax for clear and helpful answers. I could think of several English prefixes ending in "r-" (especially just before a syllable that begins with "r"), but there are not that many, and, if you´ve learned prefix behavior in English, the similarities are pretty great (these prefixes tend to come from Latin - that´s where I got my prefix education, many many years ago).
In- often becomes Ir- before r-words: irregular, irrelevant, irritable, irresistible (can you tell which of these are English and which Spanish? NB: except for #2, Trick question!)
Con- can become cor- before r-stems: correspondent, corrida, corregir, correction.
Sub- can also make the change for reasons of euphony (good sound): surreal, surround, surrender.
There may be more, but they don´t jump to mind. I´m sure it won´t take you long to get comfortable with them (and one of the three automatic dictionaries here will parse words you´re not sure of!)
Good explanation by Brian. Great in fact.
I don´t think you have to know the history of every word to get it right the majority of the time. Given that a lot of prefixes are similar (is their a word for prefix cognats?) and a lot of words are similar, I think in many cases, just like interrelacionado, you´ll be able to see that it is not at all a double R, as in perro, but in fact, two in a row, from inter, and relado, which is a very different things. And, since Spanish uses a lot less compound words than germanic languages, including English, there won´t be all th at may cases of of one unfamiliar word ending in r followed by another unfamiliar one with a leading r. It will most often be, like in this case, with a pretty easily recognized prefix, like Inter. Maybe we´d miss a couple that way, but it won´t be many or often.
hth roger
