Hello list,
I'd like to know how to specify the following rules of the Italian language.
Feminine words starting with a vowel change the preceding indefinite
article ending with a vowel: the article loses the ending vowel, that is
replaced by an apostrophe. Example:
una opera => un'opera ("a work", but also "an opera")
una opera => un’opera (with the unicode curly single quote)
In case of definite articles, that is true also for masculine words
starting with a vowel.
la opera => l'opera ("the work", also "the opera", feminine)
lo operaio => l'operaio ("the worker", masculine)
This extends to articulate prepositions (preposition+article), like
nella opera => nell'opera ("in the work", "in the opera")
dello operaio => dell'operaio ("of the worker")
HYPHENATION
In Italian you can't hyphenate after an apostrophe:
un'opera => un'o-pe-ra
nell'opera => nel-l'o-pe-ra
so these are the allowed hyphenations:
un'o-
pera typographically rather ugly
un'ope-
ra better
nel-
l'opera typographically the best (preposition-article split)
nell'o- ugly
pera
nell'ope-
ra
but, though it's not used much anymore, you can go back to the version
without apostrophe, as long as the uncut article or preposition is the
last word in a line:
una
opera
nella
opera
These are seldom used, but they would be a good solution, especially
when the line break occurs across pages.
Sometimes it's also the finest typographical solution when you have
narrow columns.
The reason it is seldom used is because there's no automatic solution in
typesetting software.
You can do it manually, but when a change in the text modifies the line
breaking, the article/preposition could move away from the end of the
line, and you'd get "una opera" or "nella opera" in the middle of a
line, which is grammatically correct but definitely not something you
would expect in a printed text, considered almost an error.
THE QUESTION
Is there a way to encode such rules with \hyphenation and \discretionary?
I tried
\hyphenation{nel{-l'o}{la}{o}-pe-ra}
but it does not seem to work.
Massi
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