Protip: Word Division in Lyrics, Part 1: Introduction, Latin, Italian

By A-R's house editors

An Introduction to Word Division

In editing vocal music, one of the most important concerns is, of course, the lyrics—the words being sung. It goes without saying that lyrics should be positioned in the music in such a way that they are clearly aligned with their corresponding notes, so that performers know what to sing on what note. In particular, because any word of more than one syllable will span more than a single note, music editors and typesetters must pay attention to the way those words are divided into syllables—and the conventions for doing so differ from one language to the next.[1]

Although the topic of word division comes up in most style guides and dictionaries, those works tend to focus not on lyrics underlaid to music but on text-typesetting concerns like hyphenation at line breaks, and the rules for the latter cannot always be made to apply to the former. As an example: The Chicago Manual of Style’s rules for English word division would prohibit the division of the word “alive” across a line break because it begins with a syllable of a single letter. But now imagine the sheet music of the titular song from The Sound of Music (1965), which of necessity has to print “The hills are a-live with the sound of mu-sic”—for the simple fact that the syllables “a-” and “-live” are sung on two different notes.

This is where this series of UnderScore posts comes in. Its aim is threefold: (1) to clarify aspects of word division that relate specifically to sung texts, (2) to detail A-R’s house style practices for word division in music, and (3) to provide guidelines on word division specific to languages frequently encountered in the Western art music tradition. Rules for Latin and Italian are given below. Future posts will cover French, Spanish, German, English, and Russian.

Latin Word Division

A-R’s rules for Latin word division are based on the practices of the Liber Usualis (Tournai: Desclée & Co., 1952; repr., Great Falls, Mont.: St. Bonaventure Publications, 1997) and other standard Latin-texted liturgical books of Western Christianity, as well as conventions used in scholarly editions of music for generations. The general guidelines are these:

1. Syllable divisions normally follow a vowel and precede a consonant (a-gi-tur, di-xit, mi-se-re-re).
2. The diphthongs ae, au, eu, and oe are not divided, though other vowel pairs may be if they form two separate sounds (cae-li, plau-di-te, a-it, e-o-dem, su-is).
3. A group of two or more consonants within a word is divided after the vowel when the first consonant is not l, m, n, or r (a-stra, de-xte-ra, san-ctus, ba-pti-sma). This is true whether the letters form a digraph or not (su-sci-pe, bra-chi-o).
4. If the first consonant in such a group is l, m, n, or r, the syllable divides at that letter (al-ma, som-nus, tem-plum, an-te, mor-tu-us).
5. The combination qu is treated as a single consonant and does not divide (ae-quus).
6. Double consonants divide (nul-lus, mit-te, tor-ren-te).
7. The following rules apply to words with prefixes and compound words:
   1. In general, divide compound words according to their components (quem-ad-mo-dum, quid-cun-que, vo-bis-cum, sic-ut, at-que, se-met-i-psum, os-cu-lum[2]).
   2. In words with prepositional prefixes, do not divide the prefix (trans-tu-lit, ad-o-re-mus, in-e-bri-at, per-e-as, prae-ter-e-o). Note that prepositional prefixes ending in a vowel will include an additional consonant, usually d, when combining with verbs that begin with a vowel (red-e-mit,[3] prod-i-it).
   3. When the suffixes -que (“and”) or -ne (signaling a question) are added to a word, these suffixes are respected in division (ho-stes-que, his-ne).
   4. In words with the negative prefix in-, the prefix is not respected in division, and the word is divided according to rules 1–3 above (i-ni-mi-cus, i-ni-qui-tas).
   5. Special considerations for the verb possum, potere, “to be able”: In present tense forms beginning with pot-, this element remains separate, as if it were one of the prepositional prefixes in rules 7a and 7b above (pot-es, pot-est). All other forms beginning with pot- are divided according to rules 1 and 3 above (po-tens, po-tu-it).
8. Exceptions may apply to words borrowed from Hebrew or Aramaic (Is-ra-el, Mag-da-le-ne, sa-bach-tha-ni).

Italian Word Division

Whenever possible, syllables in Italian words should be divided after a vowel and should begin with a consonant (cie-lo, ma-no, ro-sa). Most consonant clusters stay together in division, whether they are digraphs or not (ce-tra, fre-sca, de-stra, bra-chi, gi-glio, si-gno-re). Exceptions and other considerations for consonants are as follows:

1. The consonants l, m, n, and r remain with the vowel (al-to, tem-pio, com-pra, a-den-tro, len-to, mar-mo).
2. Divide double consonants (bel-la, pen-ne, gat-ti).
3. Divide the consonant pairs gm, cm, tm, bn, cn, bs, fg, and cq between the consonants (nac-que, seg-men-to, ac-me, at-mo-sfe-ri-ca).
4. When an apostrophe follows a consonant to signal the omission of a vowel, avoid division immediately after the apostrophe (sul-l’a-ria, del-l’I-ta-lia, u-n’o-ra). See below for more on Italian apostrophe usage.

Some considerations for vowels:

1. As in Latin, do not divide vowel groups that function as diphthongs or triphthongs (au-ra, oi-mè)[4] or that feature u as an initial glide (uo-mo).
2. Vowels may be divided if they form two separate sounds (so-a-ve, be-a-to, sa-et-te, a-i-ta).
3. Word-final -io, -ia, -uo, and ua may be divided or not depending on musical and poetic considerations (e.g., both mio and mi-o are possible, as are tua and tu-a).
4. When i or u occurs after a consonant or consonant group but before another vowel, the i usually remains with the preceding consonant or consonant group (ac-ciac-ca-tu-ra, bian-co, cio-è, chia-ro, gio-ia, glie-lo, ghiot-to, guer-ra, mu-tua-le, u-gua-le, viag-gio).

Because vowel elision (synalepha) is a common occurrence in written, spoken, and sung Italian, some guidelines for the uses of apostrophes and elision marks are given here:

1. When an apostrophe appears after a consonant, no space is placed after the apostrophe (l’alma, dell’uomo, all’altra, un’arte).
2. When an apostrophe appears after a vowel, a space is placed after the apostrophe (i’ provo, a’ miei martiri, po’ duro).
3. In Italian musical underlay, a curved elision ligature (undertie) is used to indicate elisions between two vowels—that is, two vowels that are to be run together as a single vowel/syllable for the purposes of a musical setting (see example 1). As with apostrophes, avoid making a syllable division directly after an elision symbol (spar-si‿in, per-fi-do‿in-gra-to). Although the elision ligature is available in most mainstream music notation software, it is also acceptable to use an underscore character (_) in its place when making your transcription or to add it by hand in the printout of your score; the typesetters will insert the correct symbol.
4. When an apostrophe replaces a vowel at the beginning of a word, a nonbreaking space must precede the apostrophe (è ’l, su ’l, che ’l).
5. When an apostrophe follows a vowel and the following word begins with a vowel, place a nonbreaking space after the apostrophe (su’ er-ro-re). No elision ligature is necessary in this case.

Example 1. Giacomo Carissimi, “Consolati, cor mio” (mm. 89–92), from Cantatas on Texts by Francesco Buti (1606–82), edited by Michael Klaper and Nastasia Heckendorff (B226).

As always, feel free to consult your house editor when ambiguities arise.

[1] The same word may be divided two different ways in two different languages. For example, the word fresca, “fresh, cool,” exists in both Spanish and Italian but is divided as fres-ca in the former and as fre-sca in the latter; ditto guerra, “war,” which is divided as guer-ra in Italian and as gue-rra in Spanish.

[2] The word osculum is formed as the diminutive of the word os, “mouth.” Diminutive suffixes, like any component of a compound word, are respected in Latin word division.

[3] The nouns red-em-pti-o and red-em-ptor and their forms divide according to the same principles as the verb red-i-mo, red-i-me-re.

[4] Note that when ai or oi is followed directly by a vowel, ai and oi are not treated as diphthongs and instead divide before the letter i (a-iu-to, ma-ia-le, gio-ia).