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self-supporting line

Structure
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A line functioning independently of surrounding context or rhyme.

Detailed Definition
A self-supporting line is a verse line that maintains syntactic and semantic integrity independently, requiring no enjambment for comprehension; such lines often end with punctuation and convey a complete thought, contributing to clarity and rhythmic stability in traditional or epigrammatic poetry.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” is a self-supporting line—grammatically and thematically complete; Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death –” functions as a self-supporting line introducing narrative; Robert Frost’s “Whose woods these are I think I know” is self-supporting in syntax and meaning; A haiku’s first line like “Over the wintry” can be self-supporting in image and pause
Additional Notes
self-supporting line: A line of verse that is end-stopped and grammatically/semantically complete in itself, without relying on the next line for its meaning; promotes a clear, measured pace.
Also Known As
Autonomous line self-standing line independent verse unit Cantilevered line
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