Hiatus (definition)

Hiatus refers to a break in a vocalic sequence whereby each vowel belongs to a different syllable. For instance, the word hiatus [haɪ.e.təs] exhibits the phenomenon where the " . " marks the syllable break between the diphthong [aɪ] and the monophthong [e]. Many languages avoid hiatus by deleting a vowel or by adding a consonant via epenthesis.

For information on Hiatus in Scottish Gaelic see Hiatus.

See Also

• Hiatus
• Syllable (definition)
• Epenthesis (definition)
• Epenthesis

External Links

• http://akerbeltz.org/index.php?title=Hiatus

The link below takes you away from the Gaelic Wiki to Wikipedia. Since wikipedia pages can be edited by anyone, they often contain inaccurate information. So be careful!

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiatus_(linguistics)

References

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiatus_(linguistics)
• Hualde, José and Monica Prieto (2002) On the diphthong/hiatus contrast in Spanish: some experimental results. Linguistics 40: 217-234.