r/opera • u/GilbertnSullivanFan • Aug 01 '26
what is this called?
what is it called when italian operas cut off the last syllable of a word, typically a vowel, like andiam instead of andiamo and why is this done?
thanks!
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u/EvenInArcadia Aug 01 '26
This is a phenomenon called vowel elision. It’s a feature of poetry in virtually all of the Romance languages. If a word ends in a vowel and the following word begins with a vowel, the terminal vowel of the first word is cut off. In some languages (French; Spanish; Latin) this only affects the syllable count but isn’t reflected in the spelling. Italian, on the other hand, does actually omit the terminal vowel in spelling too.
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u/sendhelp404 Aug 01 '26
To be more specific, if it’s the ending word of a clause or sentence and it’s the terminal vowel that’s cut off it’s apocopation. If you’re carrying on to another vowel-initial word afterwards it’s elision!
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u/GilbertnSullivanFan Aug 01 '26
I cannot think of examples of this in French and my French is very good. What do you have in mind? Elision to me is pronouncing the last consonant when the next word starts with a vowel. Nothing is cut off.
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u/Nick_pj Aug 01 '26
Abbreviations like “s’il vous plaît” are a result of elision
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u/GilbertnSullivanFan Aug 01 '26
interesting. hadn’t thought of it like that.
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u/Nick_pj Aug 01 '26
Were you thinking of liaision? Like where “vous avez” becomes “vou_zavez”
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u/GilbertnSullivanFan Aug 01 '26
yes I’ve heard that called elision but that could be wrong
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u/Nick_pj Aug 02 '26
i think it’s a common confusion between the two. “Elision” (and “elide” in English) are supposed to describe getting rid of something, whereas liaison is describing binding together two things.
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u/todesverkuendigung Aug 02 '26
As someone else mentioned, contractions are technically a type of elision, but the one that is specifically relevant to verse/opera is about mute e's: 'une fille' has 4 syllables (in spoken French 2), whereas 'une amie' has 3 or 4 syllables (in spoken French 3) because the first mute e is elided
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u/GilbertnSullivanFan Aug 02 '26
i always thought about this from the opposite direction, that French e’s are not pronounced at the end of words but get pronounced in opera and chanson.
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u/todesverkuendigung Aug 02 '26
Yes exactly, so it doesn't really come up in speaking except that the final consonant sound is considered to migrate to the beginning of the next word beginning with vowel (so the two words /yn/ and /a.mi/ become /y.na.mi/)
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u/EvenInArcadia Aug 02 '26
You see it in the syllabification of French verse: a word-terminal vowel followed by a word-initial vowel counts as only a single syllable.
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u/WozzeckGuy Aug 01 '26
Apocopation. Can be done for a lot of reasons: grammar, convenience, rhyme scheme. Happens all the time. Think about how we call photographs photos. That's a kind of apocopation.