Lyric form

A lyric form is what skryba lyrics holds lyrics to: the lines of a stanza and which of them rhyme, the syllables of a line, how much of a rhyme two lines must share, which endings carry no rhyme, how many rhymes a line holds inside itself, where its stresses fall (its meter) and where it pauses (its caesura). Every one of them is counted from the text by the rules below, never asked of a model, so the same lyrics always get the same verdict and a person can recount any number by hand.

Why counted

A model asked to write ten-syllable lines with two-syllable rhymes will answer that it did, and often it did not: it counts letters or guesses, pairs words that look alike (środku with głodu), and leans on grammatical endings (planami, zmianami, ścianami, ranami) that rhyme only because the grammar made them end alike. A count that does not come from the model is the only way to know.

Syllables

Polish spelling is read as it is said:

• one vowel (a ą e ę i o ó u y) is one syllable;
• ch is h, rz is ż, ó is u; cz, sz, dz, dź and dż are one sound each; q, v and x are read k, w and ks;
• ci, si, zi, ni and dzi are ć, ś, ź, ń and dź; their i is a syllable only when no vowel follows it, so ci has one syllable, cie one and dziki two;
• any other consonant followed by i and a vowel is softened and that i is no syllable: Miu, biały; an i that opens a word before a vowel is j.

A line's syllables are its words' syllables added up. A loanword is read by its spelling, so write it as it is said (dedlajn) to have it counted as said. A digit is said as words this count does not spell out: it counts as no syllable and the line is reported, so spell numbers in words.

Rhyme

What rhymes is sound, not spelling. Consonants are voiced as they are said: a cluster takes the voicing of its last member, w and rz after a voiceless consonant are voiceless, and a consonant that ends a word is voiceless. ę that ends a word is said e. Stress falls on the second-to-last syllable of a word, or on its only one.

Each line ending is cut into syllables from the end, a syllable being its vowel and the consonants after it up to the next vowel. Two lines rhyme on as many syllables as they share from the end, across word boundaries, so the consonant that opens the first shared syllable may differ. They rhyme when they share at least the form's rhyme_syllables, and never fewer than from the stressed syllable of either last word on, and their last words differ.

• środku and głodu: otku against odu, one shared syllable (u). With --rhyme-syllables 2 they do not rhyme; neither would they with 1, because both words are stressed on their second-to-last syllable and must share two.
• środku and ośrodku: otku and otku, two shared syllables.
• kontrakty and fakty: akty and akty, two.

Refused endings

A form can refuse endings, such as ami, ach or ować. When both rhyming words end in the same refused ending, the ending is taken off and what is left must rhyme on its own: planami and ścianami with ami refused are measured as plan and ścian, which share one syllable. That is the grammatical rhyme the form exists to stop. Two words that share only an ending nobody refused rhyme as their sound says.

Internal rhymes

internal_rhymes asks every line to hold that many pairs of its own words that rhyme under the same rule. A form without it asks for none.

Meter

meter is one mark per syllable that every line follows: / for a stressed syllable and x for an unstressed one, so x/x/x/x/ is eight syllables with the stress on every second. Its length must lie between the form's syllable bounds, since every line has exactly that many syllables.

Each line is read by the stress rule above: a word of two or more syllables is stressed on its second-to-last syllable and on no other, and a word of one syllable may be stressed or not, so it fits either mark. check reports how every line reads in stresses: /, x, and ? for a one-syllable word.

• idę do domu reads /x?/x. Against /x//x it passes. Against x/x/x it is refused: idę is stressed where the meter wants no stress and leaves unstressed a syllable the meter stresses, and domu is stressed where the meter wants no stress.
• A line whose syllable count differs from the meter's is refused with both counts.

A loanword stressed elsewhere in speech is still read by the rule; write it as it is said, or choose a word the rule reads right.

Caesura

caesura is the number of syllables before the pause every line makes. A pause falls between words, so some word of the line must end exactly after that many syllables. With --caesura 5, mówię ci prosto że nie wiem passes, because prosto ends on the fifth syllable; a line whose fifth syllable sits inside a word is refused. The caesura must be below the form's fewest syllables, so it falls inside every line.

How compose uses the form

compose tells the model the form in the words above, the catalog style and language, and the phrases to keep, and asks for the stanzas. Every draft is measured with check. A draft that breaks anything goes back to the model with each broken count quoted, up to --revisions times, and up to --candidates fresh drafts are started. The first draft every count passes is returned; when none does, compose refuses with the closest draft's counts, and --report keeps every draft and what it measured.