The Latin quantitative principle in versification has given way in
Spanish to that of syllabification simply. Account is taken, as a rule,
not of the greater or less length of the vowel in the syllabic, but of
the number of the syllables in a line and of their rhythmical accent.
(α) Vowels and Syllables Within a Word.
A problem of importance is to determine, when two or more vowels come
together, whether they form one syllable or more. The vowels are either
strong (_a_, _e_, _o_) or weak (_i_, _y_, _u_), and they come together
under three chief conditions; viz., (I) the accent of the word may be on
one of the contiguous vowels; (II) it may be on a preceding syllable;
(III) it may be on a syllable following them.