syllable ending in a short vowel, or the diphthongs and in certain noun and verb endings, was light. All other syllables were heavy: that is, syllables ending in a long vowel or diphthong, a short vowel and consonant, or a long vowel or diphthong and consonant. : light – heavy; : heavy – heavy – light; : heavy – heavy – heavy – light; : heavy – light – light – heavy – light. Greek grammarians called heavy syllables ('long', singular ), and placed them in two categories. They called a syllable with a long vowel or diphthong ('long by nature'), and a syllable ending in a consonant ('long by position'). These terms were translated into Latin as and . However, Indian grammarians distinguished vowel length and syllable weight by using the terms heavy and light for syllable quantity and the terms long and short only for vowel length. This article adopts their terminology, since not all metrically heavy syllables have long vowels; e.g.: () is a heavy syllable having a long vowel, "long by nature"; () is a heavy syllable having a diphthong, "long by nature"; () is a heavy syllable ending in a consonant, "long by position". Poetic meter shows which syllables in a word counted as heavy, and knowing syllable weight allows us to determine how consonant clusters were divided between syllables. Syllables before double consonants, and most syllables before consonant clusters, count as heavy. Here the letters count as consonant clusters. This indicates that double consonants and most consonant clusters were divided between syllables, with at least the first consonant belonging to the preceding syllable. ('different'): heavy – heavy ('so that'): heavy – light ('worthy'): heavy – light – heavy ('may I see!'): heavy – heavy – heavy – light ('rejoicing' ): light – heavy – light – light – heavy In Attic poetry, syllables before a cluster of a stop and a liquid or nasal are commonly light rather than heavy. This was called ('Attic shortening'), since here an ordinarily "long" syllable became "short". ('of a father'): Homeric (heavy-heavy), Attic (light-heavy) Onset In Attic Greek, any single consonant and many consonant clusters can occur as a syllable onset (the beginning of a syllable). Certain consonant clusters occur as onsets, while others do not occur. Six stop clusters occur. All of them agree in voice-onset time, and begin with a labial or velar and end with