WORD STRUCTURE

A.     SYLLABLES
 

• In Spanish, a sílaba is normally formed by the union of a consonant and a vowel, or vice versa.

•  
   

  ca-sa	car-te-ra	ca-rre-te-ra	co-mu-ni-ca-ción
  ra-dio	lám-pa-ra	o-cho	e-di-fi-cio
  On-ta-rio	vi-de-o	chi-me-ne-a	te-le-vi-sión
  An-to-nio	pá-ja-ro	fe-rro-ca-rril	Ca-ro-li-na

  
   
   

• Please note: the first syllables of cartera and lámpara (car, and lám respectively) are formed by two consonants and one vowel in between. In Spanish, a syllable NEVER has two consonants next to eachother (except for rr and ch, which are letters of the alphabet itself) because is the vowel the one that causes the sound.

• REMEMBER: The sound of the vowels NEVER change no matter the consonants that are between the vowels.

• Did you noticed that ra -dio, e-di-fi-cio, and te-le-vi-sión have two vowels one right after the other one and  weren't separated? Well, in Spanish vowels are classified as weak (débiles) and strong (fuertes) and depending on its union, they will form a common or a new syllable.

•  If two strong (fuertes) vowels are together, they will ALWAYS form different syllables.

• It is necessary to know how a word is divided into, in order to understand what is the predominant syllable that carries the accent in a word.

• It's different to say:

• On the other hand, if a strong and a weak vowel are together, a "Diptongo" is formed. Diptongo is the union of one strong vowel (a,e,o) and one weak vowel (i,u). This union will count as one syllable. For example:

Please note that these words are formed by only one syllable, known as "Monosílabas".
 
 

• They are never divided into:

• There are some other words that are not monosílabas and also have the union of a weak (i,u) and a strong (a,e,o) vowel. Let's look at them:

In this words the syllables Jai - nai - clien - fue - cía and pia, are diptongos.

• Now let's consider the union of three vowels. A triptongo is formed only when a strong vowel (a,e,o) is between two weak vowels (i,u) creating only one syllable. For example:

• Once you have done the syllabic break down, you are know ready to determine which one of these syllables carries the accent. Take each one of the syllables and start pronouncing each one of them in a very loooooong manner. Then, you will find what is the predominant vowel.

• As you might have noticed, words are classified depending on the number of syllables each one has.

• Words with only one syllable are known as "monosílabas". For example:

• Words with two syllables are known as "bisílabas".

• Words with three syllables are know as "trisílabas".

• Words with four or more syllables are known as "polisílabas".

B.   ACCENT
 

• All words carry accent. Accent is just the stress that the predominant vowel carries. Some words required an accent mark known as Tílde Diacrítica, but some others do not. How do we know which ones do and which ones do not? here are some rules that might help you.

• AGUDAS: are the words that carry the accent in the last syllable.
• • • • • •  

* Tílde diacrítica is required when the word ends in vowel, in -n or -s.

• GRAVES: are the words that carry the accent in the syllable before the last one.

* A tílde diacrítica  is required when the word ends in a consonant exceptina vowel,-n or -s.

• ESDRÚJULAS: are the words that carry the accent in the third or fourth syllable going back to front. For example,

• • Tílde diacrítica is required for all esdrújulas.
     

• SOBREESDRÚJULAS: are the words that carry the accent in the same place as esdrújulas do. The third or fourth syllable going back to front. Generally, these words are conjugations of verbs. For example,

Created by Silvana Mendez
Foreign Language Lab / University of Houston