Chapters on English Printing, Prosody, and Pronunciation (1550-1700)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1902 Excerpt: ... III. AN INQUIRY INTO THE USE OF SYNIZESIS IN SHAKESPEAREAN AND MILTONIC VERSE. By Synizesis we understand a peculiar shortening of the pronunciation of certain words causing two syllables to coalesce into one. If, for instance, we look up the word folio in Webster's Dictionary, or the word guano in the Historical English Dictionary edited by Murray and Bradley, --not conversely, for authorities frequently differ on questions of orthoepy--we find that these words may be pronounced in three syllables as fo-li-o and gu-a-no, or in two syllables as fol-yo and gwa-no. The second mode of pronunciation is technically known as synizesis, and differs from all other shortenings, such as aphaeresis, syncope, apocope, synalephe, and coalition, by the retention of the same number of letter-sounds heard in the uncontracted form, the only difference being that the vowel-sound in the syllable with weakest stress changes its nature by becoming consonantal, and being uttered as forming part of the following syllable. Strictly speaking, we know nothing about the occurrence of synizesis in the pronunciation of Shakespeare's time. We might, indeed, be strongly inclined to take for granted the synizetic pronunciation of the small group of words of which, for instance, assuage and persuade are representatives of very frequent occurrence. For in this case the modern sound would seem to be fully proved for Elizabethan pronunciation also, by the old spellings asswage, perswade, etc., which, always in more or less frequent alternation with the modern orthography, can be traced up to the manuscripts of Chaucer's and Gower's works. But here too, on nearer view, doubts begin to arise. On p. 25 of that curious booklet of his, The New Art of Spelling, from which we have repeatedly quoted, ...