III. Caesural pauses.
IV. Rhyme.
I. SYLLABIFICATION
Consonants.—In verse the same rules hold as in prose for the distribution of consonants in syllables.
Vowels.—If there were but one vowel in a syllable, Spanish syllabification would be easy; but sometimes two or more vowels are found either between consonants, or at the beginning or at the end of a word. When such is the case, intricacies arise, for sometimes the contiguous vowels are pronounced in a single syllable and sometimes they are divided into separate syllables.
The contiguous vowels may belong to a single word (see A); or they may be the final vowel or vowels of one word and the initial vowel or vowels of a following word or words (see B).
A. Diphthongization,—If two contiguous vowels of a single word are pronounced in but one syllable they form a diphthong, e.g. hu^esped.
B. Synalepha.—If two or more contiguous vowels belonging to two or more words are pronounced in a single syllable, they form synalepha.
Ex. Yo sé^un himno gigante y^extraño, p. 164, I, l. 1.
Since Spanish verse depends upon a determined number of syllables per line, diphthongization and synalepha are important factors in versification.