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Diaeresis




In Linguistics , a diaeresis, also spelled '''dieresis''' (from Greek διαίρεσις, ''diairein'', to divide; see also American And British Spelling Differences ) is the division of two adjacent Vowel s as two Syllable s rather than as a Diphthong . An example is "coöperate". The opposite phenomenon is known as ''' Synaeresis '''.


ORTHOGRAPHY

In Orthography , the term "diaeresis" is sometimes used as a shortening of "diaeresis mark", which designates a diacritic similar to the umlaut sign ( ¨ ) that was originally placed over vowels to indicate that they had undergone a phonological diaeresis, but has since been repurposed for a variety of different functions, in various languages. See Diaeresis (diacritic) .

Phonological diaeresis is sometimes indicated with other diacritics, such as the Acute Accent in Spanish and Portuguese . For example, the Portuguese words ''saia'' "skirt" and ''saía'' "I used to leave" ( Brazilian Pronunciation ) differ in that the sequence forms a diphthong in the former (synaeresis), but is a hiatus in the latter (diaeresis).


SEE ALSO