De alguna arruinada iglesia (8)
The number of vowels entering into a synalepha is commonly two or three; rarely four, and, by a tour de force, even five:
Ni envidio a Eudoxia ni codicio a Eulalia (11)
Synalepha is not prevented by any mark of punctuation separating the two words nor by the caesural pause (see below). In dramatic verse a synalepha may even be divided between two speakers. In the short lines of "El Mendigo," Espronceda mingles four- with five-syllable verses. But as the five-syllable verses begin with vowels and the preceding four-syllable verses end with vowels, the former sound no longer than the rest. In very short lines synalepha may occur between one verse and another following it. See also line 1389 of "El Estudiante de Salamanca."
1. The simplest case is where both vowels entering into synalepha occur in unstressed syllables:
Informes, en que se escuchan (8)
When the two vowels coming together are identical, as here, they fuse into a single sound (s'escuchan), with only a slight gain in the quantity of the vowel. Se here has no individual accent in the stress-group. Where the vowels in synalepha are different, each is sounded, but the stronger or more dominant is the one more distinctly heard:
Vagar, y aúllan los perros (8)
2. The second case is where the vowel or diphthong ending the first word in the synalepha bears the stress, and the initial vowel or diphthong of the second word is unstressed. Examples which do not involve stress-shift:
Del que mató en desafío (8)