Roburic tilde: what it is, grammatical rule and examples

What is the roburic tilde?

The roburic tilde, or solvent tilde, is the one that signals the hiatus, being placed on the closed vowel when it is tonic, and is preceded or followed by an open vowel. For example in Mariathe roburic tilde goes on the I, to indicate that this vowel is stronger than the A, and that it forms two different syllables.

Thus, if this word is separated into syllables, it would look like this: Ma-I laughed-to. If it did not have an accent or tilde, there would only be two syllables: Ma-ria.

Other examples: cause and trunk.

In the first word there is no hiatus, but rather a diphthong (which is the union of an open and a closed vowel), it does not have an accent and the two vowels form a single syllable: couch-sa. In the second, there is a hiatus, which is the sequence of two vowels, one open and the other closed, which belong to different syllables, and therefore does have an accent: ba-úl.

The open vowels are aeo, and the closed ones iu. They are also called strong and weak vowels.

The tilde is a mark that indicates the greatest force of voice in a syllable. Its use in Spanish is quite restricted, therefore, it is not used in most words.

On the other hand, a stressed vowel is the nucleus of a stressed syllable, that is, the one that is perceived as the most prominent within a word.

Grammatical rule of the roburic tilde

The particular combination of a closed or weak vowel (i, u) tonic and an open or strong vowel (a, e, o) forms a hiatus. When two contiguous vowels are pronounced in two different syllables, a hiatus occurs.

The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) defines the syllable as a unit of the language made up of one or more articulated sounds grouped around the one with the highest sonority, generally a vowel.

The purpose of the roburic tilde is to break the diphthong so that the syllables are pronounced in two voice strokes (two syllables).

The norm indicates that all hiatus that is formed by a strong vowel and a weak tonic must be marked, without exception, regardless of the order of the vowels.

The possible combinations would be went, íe, lol, uah, EU and uo when the open vowel comes first, and ai, I heard, I heard, , eu and ou when it goes after

It must be taken into consideration that the letter h does not break the hiatus, therefore, the same rule must be applied to these cases. Likewise, a hiatus can be produced with two equal vowels, or two open vowels, such as Mai laughedta, olno.

But in those cases the general rules of accentuation are used. These general rules are also taken into account when the tonic element is the open vowel.

Examples of youilde roburica

Below are two excerpts from the works of the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez. Roburic accents are in bold for identification.

1. Many years afterEUs, in front of the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendwent roomwent to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to see ice.

(Excerpt from one hundred years of solitude)

2. Servant Seawent He never understood what happened to Cayetano Delaura, why he didn’t return with his basket of beauties from the portals and his insatiable nights. On May 29, out of breath for more, she again dreamed of the window of a snowy field, where Cayetano Delaura was not even back.went to never be

havewent in my lap a bunch of golden grapes that I returnedwentna sprout as soon as they are eatenwent. But this time she did not pluck them one by one, but two by two, hardly breathing for the desire to beat the bunch to the last grape.

(Excerpt from Love and Other Demons)

3.Caino

4.Caigives

5.FrI heardr

6.garuah

7.Buho

8. bookstorewent

9.MNo

10.Mlol

11.Twent

12.Chta

13. Skiíeyes

References

Syllable [Def. 1]. (s/f). Recovered from dle.rae.es.
García Gutiérrez, JI, Garrido Nombela, R. and Hernández de Lorenzo, N. (2003). Book of style. Madrid: Comillas Pontifical University.

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