[NTG-context] italian words with apostrophe - hyphenation and discretionary

[mf <massifr@fastwebnet.it>]

Hello list,

I'd like to know how to specify the following rules of the Italian language.

Feminine words starting with a vowel change the preceding indefinite 
article ending with a vowel: the article loses the ending vowel, that is 
replaced by an apostrophe. Example:

una opera => un'opera ("a work", but also "an opera")
una opera => un’opera (with the unicode curly single quote)

In case of definite articles, that is true also for masculine words 
starting with a vowel.

la opera => l'opera ("the work", also "the opera", feminine)

lo operaio => l'operaio ("the worker", masculine)

This extends to articulate prepositions (preposition+article), like

nella opera => nell'opera ("in the work", "in the opera")

dello operaio => dell'operaio ("of the worker")

HYPHENATION

In Italian you can't hyphenate after an apostrophe:

un'opera => un'o-pe-ra
nell'opera => nel-l'o-pe-ra

so these are the allowed hyphenations:

un'o-
pera      typographically rather ugly

un'ope-
ra        better

nel-
l'opera   typographically the best (preposition-article split)

nell'o-   ugly
pera

nell'ope-
ra

but, though it's not used much anymore, you can go back to the version 
without apostrophe, as long as the uncut article or preposition is the 
last word in a line:

una
opera

nella
opera

These are seldom used, but they would be a good solution, especially 
when the line break occurs across pages.
Sometimes it's also the finest typographical solution when you have 
narrow columns.

The reason it is seldom used is because there's no automatic solution in 
typesetting software.
You can do it manually, but when a change in the text modifies the line 
breaking, the article/preposition could move away from the end of the 
line, and you'd get "una opera" or "nella opera" in the middle of a 
line, which is grammatically correct but definitely not something you 
would expect in a printed text, considered almost an error.

THE QUESTION

Is there a way to encode such rules with \hyphenation and \discretionary?

I tried

\hyphenation{nel{-l'o}{la}{o}-pe-ra}

but it does not seem to work.

Massi
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