Editing Alliteration (section)

==Types of alliteration==
There are several concepts to which the term ''alliteration'' is sometimes applied:

# ''Literary or poetic alliteration'' is often described as the repetition of identical initial consonant sounds in successive or closely associated syllables within a group of words.{{sfn|Beckson|Ganz|1989}}{{sfn|Carey|Snodgrass|1999}}{{sfn|Crews|1977|p=437}}{{sfn|Harmon|2012}} However, this is an oversimplification; there are several special cases that have to be taken into account:
#* Repetition of unstressed consonants does not count as alliteration.{{sfn|Thomson|1986}} Only stressed syllables can alliterate (though "stressed" includes any syllable that counts as an upbeat in poetic meter,<ref>{{cite web|url = http://volweb.utk.edu/school/bedford/harrisms/allitera.htm|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130424131100/http://volweb.utk.edu/school/bedford/harrisms/allitera.htm|url-status = dead|archive-date = 2013-04-24|title=Alliteration, University of Tennessee Knoxville|access-date=2013-09-10}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url = http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/alliteration_def.html|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130703045013/http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/alliteration_def.html|url-status = dead|archive-date = 2013-07-03|title=Definition of Alliteration, Bcs.bedfordstmartins.com|access-date=2013-09-10}}</ref> such as the syllable ''long'' in [[James Thomson (poet, born 1700)|James Thomson]]'s verse "Come . . . dragging the lazy languid line along".)
#* The repetition of syllable-initial vowels functions as alliteration, regardless of which vowels are used.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Scott |first=Fred Newton |date=December 1915 |title=Vowel Alliteration in Modern Poetry |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2915831 |journal=Modern Language Notes |volume=30 |issue=8 |pages=233 |doi=10.2307/2915831 |issn=0149-6611|url-access=subscription }}</ref> This may be because such syllables start with a [[glottal stop]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jakobson |first=Roman |date=1963 |title=On the so-called vowel alliteration in Germanic verse |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1524/stuf.1963.16.14.85 |journal=STUF - Language Typology and Universals |volume=16 |issue=1-4 |doi=10.1524/stuf.1963.16.14.85 |issn=2196-7148|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
#* There is ample evidence of alliteration in English among the consonant clusters ''sp-'', ''st-'', and ''sk-'', and between those consonant clusters and the initial ''s-'' sound.  That is to say, words beginning with ''s-'' (without a consonant cluster) can alliterate with words beginning with a consonant cluster beginning with ''s-'' (such as ''sp-'', ''st-'', and ''sk-''). Examples of this may be found in the words of Walt Whitman ("Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun"), John F. Kennedy ("same high standards of strength and sacrifice"), and Barack Obama ("Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall") cited below in this article. Despite this evidence, some have claimed, seemingly arbitrarily, that, in English (and in other Germanic languages), the consonant clusters ''sp-'', ''st-'', and ''sk-'' do not alliterate with one another or with ''s-''. For example, some have claimed that, while ''spill'' alliterates with ''spit'', ''sting'' with ''stick'', ''skin'' with ''scandal'', and ''sing'' with ''sleep'', those pairs do not alliterate with one another.<ref>{{Citation |title=Compressed Video Spatio-Temporal Segmentation |date=2008 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-78414-4_269 |work=Encyclopedia of Multimedia |pages=89–90 |access-date=2023-11-30 |place=Boston, MA |publisher=Springer US}}</ref> However, the evidence noted above of alliteration between ''s-'' and initial consonant clusters beginning with ''s-'' seems to render this claim invalid. The same source has stated that its baseless claim regarding ''s-'' does not apply to certain other consonant clusters, for example, stating that ''bring'' alliterates with ''blast'' and ''burn'', or rather that all three words alliterate with one another.<ref>{{Citation |title=Compressed Video Spatio-Temporal Segmentation |date=2008 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-78414-4_269 |work=Encyclopedia of Multimedia |pages=89–90 |access-date=2023-11-30 |place=Boston, MA |publisher=Springer US}}</ref>
#* Alliteration may also refer to the use of different but similar consonants,{{sfn|Stoll|1940}} often because the two sounds were identical in an earlier stage of the language.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hanson |first=Kristin |date=2007-06-18 |title=Donka Minkova, ''Alliteration and sound change in Early English'' (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 101). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xix+400. |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022226707004690 |journal=Journal of Linguistics |volume=43 |issue=2 |pages=463–472 |doi=10.1017/s0022226707004690 |issn=0022-2267|url-access=subscription }}</ref> For example, Middle English poems sometimes alliterate ''z'' with ''s'' (both originally ''s''), or hard ''g'' with soft (fricative) ''g'' (the latter represented in some cases by the letter [[yogh]] – ȝ – pronounced like the ''y'' in yarrow or the ''j'' in Jotunheim).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Johnson |first=James D. |date=1978 |title=Formulaic thrift in the Alliterative "Morte D'Arthure" |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/43631334 |journal=Medium Ævum |volume=47 |issue=2 |pages=255 |doi=10.2307/43631334 |issn=0025-8385|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
# [[Literary consonance|''Consonance'']] is a broader literary device involving the repetition of consonant sounds at any point in a word (for example, co''m''ing ho''m''e, ho''t'' foo''t'').{{sfn|Baldick|2008|p=68}} Alliteration can then be seen as a special case of consonance where the repeated consonant sound opens the stressed syllable.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/alliteration|title=alliteration|work=TheFreeDictionary.com}}</ref>
# ''Head rhyme'' or ''initial rhyme'' involves the creation of alliterative phrases where each word literally starts with the same letter;{{sfn|Carey|Snodgrass|1999}} for example, "humble house", "potential power play",{{sfn|Crews|1977|p=437}} "picture perfect", "money matters", "rocky road", or "quick question".<ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-01-29|title=Alliteration - Examples and Definition of Alliteration|url=https://literarydevices.net/alliteration/|access-date=2021-06-29|website=Literary Devices|language=en-US}}</ref>{{sfn|Meredith|2000}}  A familiar example is [[Peter Piper|"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers"]].
# ''Symmetrical alliteration'' is a specialized form of alliteration which demonstrates [[parallelism (rhetoric)|parallelism]] or [[chiasmus]]. In symmetrical alliteration with chiasmus, the phrase must have a pair of outside end words both starting with the same sound, and pairs of outside words also starting with matching sounds as one moves progressively closer to the centre. For example, with chiasmus: "rust brown blazers rule"; with parallelism: "what in earlier days had been drafts of volunteers were now droves of victims".{{sfn|Fussell|2013|p=98}} Symmetrical alliteration with chiasmus resembles [[palindrome]]s in its use of symmetry.