Contraction (grammar)
Encyclopedia
A contraction is a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters.
In traditional grammar
, contraction can denote the formation of a new word
from one word or a group of words, for example, by elision
. This often occurs in rendering a common sequence of words or, as in French
, in maintaining a flowing sound.
In strict analysis, contractions should not be confused with abbreviations or acronyms
(including initialisms), with which they share some semantic and phonetic functions, though all three are connoted by the term "abbreviation" in loose parlance. Contraction is also distinguished from clipping
, where beginnings and endings are omitted.
Informal speech sometimes allows multiple contracted forms to pile up, producing constructions like wouldn't've for "would not have".
A commonly used English contraction of two words that does not fall into either of the above categories is let's, a contraction of "let us" that is used in forming the imperative mood
in the first-person plural (e.g., "Let's go [somewhere]"). Use of the uncontracted "let us" typically carries an entirely different meaning, e.g., "Let us go [free]". "Let us" is rarely seen in the former sense and "let's" is never seen in the latter one.
Informal contractions are, by their nature, more frequent in speech than writing, e.g., John'd fix your television if you asked him. Contractions in English are generally not mandatory as in some other languages. It is almost always acceptable to write out (or say) all of the words of a contraction, though native speakers of English may judge a person not using contractions as sounding overly formal. Let's, as mentioned above, is an exception to this rule.
Writers of English commonly confuse the possessive
form of the pronoun it with its compounded contractions. The possessive form (its) has no apostrophe, while the contraction of it is or it has does have an apostrophe (it's). The same is true of the possessive form of "you" (your) with its contraction you're for "you are". See List of frequently misused English words.
The linguistic function of contractions is similar to and overlaps that of portmanteau words. Some forms of syncope may also be considered contractions, such as wanna for want to, gonna for going to, and others common in colloquial speech.
Contractions may perform the same function as abbreviations. According to one source, strictly speaking an abbreviation is formed by omitting the ending of a word, for which a period
is substituted, e.g., Lieut. for "Lieutenant
". According to this view, contractions omit the middle of a word, and are generally not terminated with a full point, e.g., Ltd for "Limited
". However, US style uses more points than British style does, e.g., in Ltd., in Jr. instead of Jr for "Junior", in Mr., etc.
Contractions are used sparingly in formal written English. The APA style guide
prefers that contractions, including Latin abbreviations, not be used in scholarly papers, and recommends that the equivalent phrase in English be written out. An exception is made for the Latin abbreviation et al. (for et alii, "and others"), which may be used with citations outside parentheses.
, some of which are used in modern Chinese.
has a variety of mandatory contractions to facilitate ease of speech, similar to English, as in C'est la vie ("That's life"), where c'est stands for ce + est ("that is"). The formation of these contractions is called elision
.
In general, any monosyllabic word ending in e caduc (schwa) will contract if the following word begins with a vowel, h or y (as h is silent and absorbed by the sound of the succeeding vowel; y sounds like i). In addition to ce → c'- (demonstrative pronoun "that"), these words are que → qu'- (conjunction, relative pronoun, or interrogative pronoun "that"), ne → n'- ("not"), se → s'- ("himself", "herself", "itself", "oneself" before a verb), je → j'- ("I"), me → m'- ("me" before a verb), te → t'- (informal singular "you" before a verb), le → l'- (masculine singular "the"; or "he", "it" before a verb or after an imperative verb and before the word y or en), and de → d'- ("of"). Unlike with English contractions, however, these contractions are mandatory: one would never say (or write) *ce est or *que elle.
In addition, the feminine definite article la mandatorily contracts to l'- before a word beginning with a vowel sound, as in l'idée, and when la is used as an object pronoun it contracts before a verb or after an imperative verb and before the word y or en.
Moi ("myself") and toi (informal "yourself") mandatorily contract to m'- and t'- respectively after an imperative verb and before the word y or en.
It is also mandatory to avoid the repetition of a sound when the preposition si ("if") is followed by il ("he", "it") or ils ("they"), which begin with the same vowel sound i: *si il → s'il ("if it", if he"); *si ils → s'ils ("if they").
Certain prepositions are also mandatorily merged with masculine and plural direct articles: au for à le, aux for à les, du for de le, and des for de les. However, the contraction of cela (demonstrative pronoun "that") to ça is optional and informal.
In informal speech, a personal pronoun may sometimes be contracted onto a following verb. For example, je ne sais pas (ʒənəsɛpa, "I don't know") may be pronounced roughly chais pas (ʃɛpa), with the ne being completely elided and the ʒ of je being mixed with the s of sais.
The words ci and è (form of essere, to be) and the words vi and è are contracted into c'è and v'è (both meaning "there is").
The words dove and è are contracted into dov'è ("where is").
has two mandatory phonetic contractions between prepositions and articles: al (to the) for a el, and del (of the) for de el (not to be confused with a él, meaning to him, and de él, meaning his or, more literally, of him). And other mandatory contractions between prepositions and pronouns: conmigo for con mí (with me), contigo for con ti (with you), consigo for con sí (with himself/herself/itself/themselves).
In informal spoken registers of Spanish, the word para, “for”, can be contracted to pa, for example in the subordinating conjunction pa'que (from para que "in order that"): Pa'que te enteres.
Another frequent informal use is the elision of d in the past participle suffix -ado, pronouncing cansado as cansao.
The elision
of d in -ido is considered even more informal.
Both elisions are however common in Andalusian Spanish
.
Thus the Andalusian quejío for quejido (“lament”) has entered Standard Spanish as a term for a special feature of Flamenco
singing. Similar distinctions are made with the words bailaor(a) and cantaor(a) as contracted versions of the literal translations for dancer and singer exclusively used for Flamenco, versus the bailarín and cantante of standard Spanish.
The perceived vulgarity of the silent d may lead to hypercorrection
s like *bacalado for bacalao (stockfish
) or *Bilbado for Bilbao
.
, contractions are common. Several prepositions regularly contract with certain articles and pronouns. For instance, de (of) and por (by; formerly per) combine with the definite articles o and a (masculine and feminine forms of "the" respectively), producing do, da (of the), pelo, pela (by the). The preposition de contracts with the pronouns ele and ela (he, she), producing dele, dela (his, her). In addition, some verb forms contract with enclitic object pronouns: e.g., the verb amar (to love) combines with the pronoun a (her), giving amá-la (to love her). See a list at Wikipedia in Portuguese: List of contracted prepositions.
prepositional phrases, one can often merge the preposition and the article
; for example, von dem becomes vom, zu dem becomes zum, or an das becomes ans. Some of these are so common that they are mandatory. In informal speech, also aufm for auf dem, unterm for unter dem, etc. are used, but would be considered to be incorrect if written, except maybe in quoted direct speech, in appropriate context and style.
of German, and various local languages which usually were already used long before today's Standard German
was created, do use contractions usually more frequently than German, but varying widely between different local languages. The informally spoken German contractions are observed almost everywhere, most often accompanied by additional ones, such as in den becoming in'n (sometimes im) or haben wir becoming hamwer, hammor, hemmer, or hamma depending on local intonation preferences. Bavarian German features several more contractions such as gesund sind wir becoming xund samma which are schematically applied to all word or combinations of similar sound. Features like that are found in all central and southern language regions. A sample from Berlin: Sagen [Sie] einmal, Meister, kann man hier einmal hinein? is spoken as Samma, Meesta, kamma hier ma rin?
Several West Central German
dialects along the Rhine River have possibly under the influence of French
, built contraction patterns involving long phrases and entire sentences. In speech, words are often concatenated, and frequently the process of "liaison" is used. So, [Dat] kriegst Du nicht may become Kressenit, or Lohß mer jonn, han ich jesaat may becomes Lomejon haschjesaat.
Mostly, there are no binding orthographies
for local dialects of German, hence writing is left to a great extent to authors and their publishers. Outside of quotations, at least, they usually pay little attention to print more than the most commonly spoken contractions, so as not to degrade their readability. The use of apostrophes to indicate omissions is a varying and considerably less frequent process than in English-language publications.
When used after verbs ending in the conjunctive form ～て (-te), certain auxiliary verbs and their derivations are often abbreviated. Examples:
* this abbreviation is never used in the polite conjugation, to avoid the resultant ambiguity between an abbreviated ikimasu (go) and the verb kimasu (come).
The ending ～なければ (-nakereba) can be contracted to ～なきゃ (-nakya) when it is used to indicate obligation. It is often used without an auxiliary, e.g. 行かなきゃ（いけない） (ikanakya (ikenai)) "I have to go."
Other times, contractions are made to create new words or to give added or altered meaning:
Various dialects of Japanese
also use their own specific contractions which are often unintelligible to speakers of other dialects.
, a Turkic language
spoken in Central Asia
, includes some verbal suffixes that are actually contracted forms of compound verb
s (serial verbs
). For instance, sëtip alidu (sell-manage, "manage to sell") is usually written and pronounced sëtivaldu, with the two words forming a contraction and the [p] leniting
into a [v] or [w].
In traditional grammar
Traditional grammar
In linguistics, a traditional grammar is a framework for the description of the structure of language. Traditional grammars are commonly used in language education.Concepts treated in traditional grammars include:* subject* predicate* object...
, contraction can denote the formation of a new word
Word
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
from one word or a group of words, for example, by elision
Elision
Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
. This often occurs in rendering a common sequence of words or, as in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, in maintaining a flowing sound.
In strict analysis, contractions should not be confused with abbreviations or acronyms
Acronym and initialism
Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word. These components may be individual letters or parts of words . There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of the various terms , nor on written usage...
(including initialisms), with which they share some semantic and phonetic functions, though all three are connoted by the term "abbreviation" in loose parlance. Contraction is also distinguished from clipping
Clipping (morphology)
In linguistics, clipping is the word formation process which consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts . Clipping is also known as "truncation" or "shortening."...
, where beginnings and endings are omitted.
English
An informal type of contraction occurs frequently in speech and writing, in which a syllable is substituted by an apostrophe and/or other mode of elision, e.g., can't for "cannot", won't for "will not". Such contractions are often either negations with not or combinations of pronouns with auxiliary verbs, e.g., I'll for "I will". At least one study has sought to analyze the category of negative informal contractions as the attachment of an inflectional suffix.| Full form | Contracted | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| not | –n't | |
| let us | let's | only contracted for first person plural imperative (e.g., not for "Let us go" as a third-party command) |
| am | –'m | only in "I'm" |
| are | –'re | |
| is | –'s | |
| does | very informal, as in "What's he do there every day?" | |
| has | ||
| was | ||
| as | nonstandard English dialect for the relative pronoun "that" | |
| have | –'ve | American English only contracts forms of have when used as auxiliaries Auxiliary verb In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,... |
| had | –'d | |
| did | very informal, as in "Where'd he go?" | |
| would | ||
| will, shall | –'ll | |
| of | o'– | used mostly in o'clock, where it is mandatory in contemporary use |
| it | 't– | Archaic, except in stock uses such as 'Twas the night before Christmas |
| them | 'em | contracted from hem, but used for modern them |
| him | 'im | |
| is not | isn't, or ain't | contracted from am not but used for modern is not; generally deprecated in modern use |
| you all | y'all | used in the southern United States as a second-person plural pronoun (possessive form y'all's) sometimes. It can be used as second-person singular, though. Plural form, especially when addressing a large group (room, etc.) is usually stated as "all y'all. |
Informal speech sometimes allows multiple contracted forms to pile up, producing constructions like wouldn't've for "would not have".
A commonly used English contraction of two words that does not fall into either of the above categories is let's, a contraction of "let us" that is used in forming the imperative mood
Imperative mood
The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
in the first-person plural (e.g., "Let's go [somewhere]"). Use of the uncontracted "let us" typically carries an entirely different meaning, e.g., "Let us go [free]". "Let us" is rarely seen in the former sense and "let's" is never seen in the latter one.
Informal contractions are, by their nature, more frequent in speech than writing, e.g., John'd fix your television if you asked him. Contractions in English are generally not mandatory as in some other languages. It is almost always acceptable to write out (or say) all of the words of a contraction, though native speakers of English may judge a person not using contractions as sounding overly formal. Let's, as mentioned above, is an exception to this rule.
Writers of English commonly confuse the possessive
Possessive pronoun
A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that substitutes for a noun phrase that begins with a possessive determiner . For example, in the sentence These glasses are mine, not yours, the words mine and yours are possessive pronouns and stand for my glasses and your glasses, respectively...
form of the pronoun it with its compounded contractions. The possessive form (its) has no apostrophe, while the contraction of it is or it has does have an apostrophe (it's). The same is true of the possessive form of "you" (your) with its contraction you're for "you are". See List of frequently misused English words.
The linguistic function of contractions is similar to and overlaps that of portmanteau words. Some forms of syncope may also be considered contractions, such as wanna for want to, gonna for going to, and others common in colloquial speech.
Contractions may perform the same function as abbreviations. According to one source, strictly speaking an abbreviation is formed by omitting the ending of a word, for which a period
Full stop
A full stop is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of sentences. In American English, the term used for this punctuation is period. In the 21st century, it is often also called a dot by young people...
is substituted, e.g., Lieut. for "Lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
". According to this view, contractions omit the middle of a word, and are generally not terminated with a full point, e.g., Ltd for "Limited
Private company limited by shares
A private company limited by shares, usually called a private limited company , is a type of company incorporated under the laws of England and Wales, Scotland, that of certain Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland...
". However, US style uses more points than British style does, e.g., in Ltd., in Jr. instead of Jr for "Junior", in Mr., etc.
Contractions are used sparingly in formal written English. The APA style guide
APA style
American Psychological Association Style is a set of rules that authors use when submitting papers for publications in APA journals. The APA states that they were developed to assist reading comprehension in the social and behavioral sciences, for clarity of communication, and to "move the idea...
prefers that contractions, including Latin abbreviations, not be used in scholarly papers, and recommends that the equivalent phrase in English be written out. An exception is made for the Latin abbreviation et al. (for et alii, "and others"), which may be used with citations outside parentheses.
Chinese
Contractions exist in Classical ChineseClassical Chinese
Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Chinese, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese...
, some of which are used in modern Chinese.
| Full Form | Transliteration | Contraction | Transliteration | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 之乎 | tjə ga | 諸 | tjᴀ | In some rarer cases 諸 can also be contraction for 有之乎. 諸 can be used on its own with the meaning of "all, the class of", as in 諸侯 "the feudal lords." |
| 若之何 | njᴀ tjə gaj | 奈何 | najs gaj | |
| 於之 | ʔa tjə | 焉 | ʔrjan | 於之 is never used; only 焉. |
| 之焉 | tjə ʔrjan | 旃 | tjan | Rare. |
| 于之 | wja tjə | 爰 | wjan | Rare. The prepositions 於, 于, and 乎 are of different origin, but used interchangeably (except that 乎 can also be used as a final question particle). |
| 如之 | nja tjə | 然 | njan | |
| 曰之 | wjot tjə | 云 | wjən | |
| 不之 | pjə tjə | 弗 | pjət | |
| 毋之 | mja tjə | 勿 | mjət | 弗 and 勿 were originally not contractions, but were reanalyzed as contractions in the Warring States Period Warring States Period The Warring States Period , also known as the Era of Warring States, or the Warring Kingdoms period, covers the Iron Age period from about 475 BC to the reunification of China under the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC... . |
| 而已 | njə ljəʔ | 耳 | njəʔ | |
| 胡不 | ga pjə | 盍 | gap | 胡 is a variant of 何. |
| 也乎 | ljᴀjʔ ga | 與 | ljaʔ | Also written 歟. |
| 也乎 | ljᴀjʔ ga | 邪 | zjᴀ | Also written 耶. Probably a dialectal variant of 與. |
| 不乎 | pjə ga | 夫 | pja | 夫 has many other meanings. |
French
The French languageFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
has a variety of mandatory contractions to facilitate ease of speech, similar to English, as in C'est la vie ("That's life"), where c'est stands for ce + est ("that is"). The formation of these contractions is called elision
Elision (French)
In French, elision refers to the suppression of a final unstressed vowel immediately before another word beginning with a vowel. The term also refers to the orthographic convention by which the deletion of a vowel is reflected in writing, and indicated with an apostrophe.- Written French :In...
.
In general, any monosyllabic word ending in e caduc (schwa) will contract if the following word begins with a vowel, h or y (as h is silent and absorbed by the sound of the succeeding vowel; y sounds like i). In addition to ce → c'- (demonstrative pronoun "that"), these words are que → qu'- (conjunction, relative pronoun, or interrogative pronoun "that"), ne → n'- ("not"), se → s'- ("himself", "herself", "itself", "oneself" before a verb), je → j'- ("I"), me → m'- ("me" before a verb), te → t'- (informal singular "you" before a verb), le → l'- (masculine singular "the"; or "he", "it" before a verb or after an imperative verb and before the word y or en), and de → d'- ("of"). Unlike with English contractions, however, these contractions are mandatory: one would never say (or write) *ce est or *que elle.
In addition, the feminine definite article la mandatorily contracts to l'- before a word beginning with a vowel sound, as in l'idée, and when la is used as an object pronoun it contracts before a verb or after an imperative verb and before the word y or en.
Moi ("myself") and toi (informal "yourself") mandatorily contract to m'- and t'- respectively after an imperative verb and before the word y or en.
It is also mandatory to avoid the repetition of a sound when the preposition si ("if") is followed by il ("he", "it") or ils ("they"), which begin with the same vowel sound i: *si il → s'il ("if it", if he"); *si ils → s'ils ("if they").
Certain prepositions are also mandatorily merged with masculine and plural direct articles: au for à le, aux for à les, du for de le, and des for de les. However, the contraction of cela (demonstrative pronoun "that") to ça is optional and informal.
In informal speech, a personal pronoun may sometimes be contracted onto a following verb. For example, je ne sais pas (ʒənəsɛpa, "I don't know") may be pronounced roughly chais pas (ʃɛpa), with the ne being completely elided and the ʒ of je being mixed with the s of sais.
Italian
In Italian, prepositions merge with direct articles in predictable ways. The prepositions a, da, di, in, su, con and per combine with the various forms of the direct article, namely il, lo, la, l', i, gli, gl', and le.| il | lo | la | l' | i | gli | (gl') | le | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | al | allo | alla | all' | ai | agli | (agl') | alle |
| da | dal | dallo | dalla | dall' | dai | dagli | (dagl') | dalle |
| di | del | dello | della | dell' | dei | degli | (degl') | delle |
| in | nel | nello | nella | nell' | nei | negli | (negl') | nelle |
| su | sul | sullo | sulla | sull' | sui | sugli | (sugl') | sulle |
| con | col | (collo) | (colla) | (coll') | coi | (cogli) | (colle) | |
| per | (pel) | (pello) | (pella) | (pell') | (pei) | (pegli) | (pelle) |
- Contractions with a, da, di, in, and su are mandatory, but those with con and per are optional.
- Words in parentheses are no longer commonly used, but some still exist in common expressions such as colla voce.
- Formerly, gl was used before words beginning with i, however it is no longer in common use.
The words ci and è (form of essere, to be) and the words vi and è are contracted into c'è and v'è (both meaning "there is").
- “C'è / V'è un problema” — There is a problem
The words dove and è are contracted into dov'è ("where is").
Spanish
SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
has two mandatory phonetic contractions between prepositions and articles: al (to the) for a el, and del (of the) for de el (not to be confused with a él, meaning to him, and de él, meaning his or, more literally, of him). And other mandatory contractions between prepositions and pronouns: conmigo for con mí (with me), contigo for con ti (with you), consigo for con sí (with himself/herself/itself/themselves).
In informal spoken registers of Spanish, the word para, “for”, can be contracted to pa, for example in the subordinating conjunction pa'que (from para que "in order that"): Pa'que te enteres.
Another frequent informal use is the elision of d in the past participle suffix -ado, pronouncing cansado as cansao.
The elision
Elision
Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
of d in -ido is considered even more informal.
Both elisions are however common in Andalusian Spanish
Andalusian Spanish
The Andalusian varieties of Spanish are spoken in Andalusia, Ceuta, Melilla and Gibraltar. They include perhaps the most distinct of the southern variants of peninsular Spanish, differing in many respects from northern varieties, and also from Standard Spanish...
.
Thus the Andalusian quejío for quejido (“lament”) has entered Standard Spanish as a term for a special feature of Flamenco
Flamenco
Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
singing. Similar distinctions are made with the words bailaor(a) and cantaor(a) as contracted versions of the literal translations for dancer and singer exclusively used for Flamenco, versus the bailarín and cantante of standard Spanish.
The perceived vulgarity of the silent d may lead to hypercorrection
Hypercorrection
In linguistics or usage, hypercorrection is a non-standard usage that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of grammar or a usage prescription...
s like *bacalado for bacalao (stockfish
Stockfish
Stockfish is unsalted fish, especially cod, dried by cold air and wind on wooden racks on the foreshore, called "hjell". The drying of food is the world's oldest known preservation method, and dried fish has a storage life of several years...
) or *Bilbado for Bilbao
Bilbao
Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...
.
Portuguese
In PortuguesePortuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, contractions are common. Several prepositions regularly contract with certain articles and pronouns. For instance, de (of) and por (by; formerly per) combine with the definite articles o and a (masculine and feminine forms of "the" respectively), producing do, da (of the), pelo, pela (by the). The preposition de contracts with the pronouns ele and ela (he, she), producing dele, dela (his, her). In addition, some verb forms contract with enclitic object pronouns: e.g., the verb amar (to love) combines with the pronoun a (her), giving amá-la (to love her). See a list at Wikipedia in Portuguese: List of contracted prepositions.
German
In informal, spoken GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
prepositional phrases, one can often merge the preposition and the article
Article (grammar)
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
; for example, von dem becomes vom, zu dem becomes zum, or an das becomes ans. Some of these are so common that they are mandatory. In informal speech, also aufm for auf dem, unterm for unter dem, etc. are used, but would be considered to be incorrect if written, except maybe in quoted direct speech, in appropriate context and style.
Local languages in German-speaking areas
Regional dialectsDialectology
Dialectology is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their associated features...
of German, and various local languages which usually were already used long before today's Standard German
Standard German
Standard German is the standard variety of the German language used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas...
was created, do use contractions usually more frequently than German, but varying widely between different local languages. The informally spoken German contractions are observed almost everywhere, most often accompanied by additional ones, such as in den becoming in'n (sometimes im) or haben wir becoming hamwer, hammor, hemmer, or hamma depending on local intonation preferences. Bavarian German features several more contractions such as gesund sind wir becoming xund samma which are schematically applied to all word or combinations of similar sound. Features like that are found in all central and southern language regions. A sample from Berlin: Sagen [Sie] einmal, Meister, kann man hier einmal hinein? is spoken as Samma, Meesta, kamma hier ma rin?
Several West Central German
West Central German
West Central German belongs to the Central, High German dialect family in the German language. Its dialects are thoroughly Franconian including the following sub-families:* Central Franconian...
dialects along the Rhine River have possibly under the influence of French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, built contraction patterns involving long phrases and entire sentences. In speech, words are often concatenated, and frequently the process of "liaison" is used. So, [Dat] kriegst Du nicht may become Kressenit, or Lohß mer jonn, han ich jesaat may becomes Lomejon haschjesaat.
Mostly, there are no binding orthographies
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
for local dialects of German, hence writing is left to a great extent to authors and their publishers. Outside of quotations, at least, they usually pay little attention to print more than the most commonly spoken contractions, so as not to degrade their readability. The use of apostrophes to indicate omissions is a varying and considerably less frequent process than in English-language publications.
Latin
Latin contains several examples of contractions. One such case is preserved in the verb nolo (I am unwilling/do not want) which was formed by a contraction of ne volo (volo meaning “I want”). Similarly this is observed in the first person plural and third person plural forms (nolumus and nolunt respectively).Japanese
Some contractions in rapid speech include ～っす (-ssu) for です (desu) and すいません (suimasen) for すみません (sumimasen). では (dewa) is often contracted to じゃ (ja). In certain grammatical contexts the particle の (no) is contracted to simply ん (n).When used after verbs ending in the conjunctive form ～て (-te), certain auxiliary verbs and their derivations are often abbreviated. Examples:
| Original Form | Transliteration | Contraction | Transliteration |
|---|---|---|---|
| -te iru / -te ita / -te imasu / etc. | -te ru / -te ta / -te masu / etc. | ||
| -te iku / -te itta / etc.* | -te ku / -te tta / etc.* | ||
| -te oku / -te oita / -te okimasu / etc. | -toku / -toita / -tokimasu / etc. | ||
| -te shimau / -te shimatta / -te shimaimasu / etc. | -chau / -chatta / -chaimasu / etc. | ||
| -de shimau / -de shimatta / -de shimaimasu / etc. | -jau / -jatta / -jaimasu / etc. | ||
| -te wa | -cha | ||
| -de wa | -ja | ||
| -nakute wa | -nakucha |
The ending ～なければ (-nakereba) can be contracted to ～なきゃ (-nakya) when it is used to indicate obligation. It is often used without an auxiliary, e.g. 行かなきゃ（いけない） (ikanakya (ikenai)) "I have to go."
Other times, contractions are made to create new words or to give added or altered meaning:
- The word 何か (nanika) "something" is contracted to なんか (nanka) to make a colloquial word with a meaning along the lines of "sort of," but which can be used with almost no meaning. Its usage is as a filler word is similar to English "like."
- じゃない (ja nai) "is not" is contracted to じゃん (jan) which is used at the end of statements to show the speaker's belief or opinion, often when it is contrary to that of the listener, e.g. いいじゃん！ (ii jan!) "What, it's fine!"
- The commonly used particle-verb phrase という (to iu) is often contracted to ～って／～て (-tte/-te) to give a more informal or noncommittal feeling.
- といえば (to ieba), the conditional form of という (to iu) mentioned above, is contracted to ～ってば (-tte ba) to show the speaker's annoyance at the listener's failure to listen to, remember, or heed what the speaker has said, e.g. もういいってば！ (mō ii tte ba!), “I already told you I don't want to talk about it anymore!”.
- The common words だ (da) and です (desu) are older contractions that originate from である (de aru) and でございます (de gozaimasu). These are fully integrated into the language now, and are not generally thought of as contractions; however in formal writing (e.g. literature, news articles, or technical/scientific writing), である (de aru) is used in place of だ (da).
Various dialects of Japanese
Japanese dialects
The comprise many regional variants. The lingua franca of Japan is called hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo , and while it was based initially on the Tokyo dialect, the language of Japan's capital has since gone in its own direction to become one of Japan's many dialects...
also use their own specific contractions which are often unintelligible to speakers of other dialects.
Uyghur
UyghurUyghur language
Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...
, a Turkic language
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
spoken in Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
, includes some verbal suffixes that are actually contracted forms of compound verb
Compound verb
In linguistics, a compound verb or complex predicate is a multi-word compound that acts as a single verb. One component of the compound is a light verb or vector, which carries any inflections, indicating tense, mood, or aspect, but provides only fine shades of meaning...
s (serial verbs
Serial verb construction
The serial verb construction, also known as serialization, is a syntactic phenomenon common to many African, Asian and New Guinean languages...
). For instance, sëtip alidu (sell-manage, "manage to sell") is usually written and pronounced sëtivaldu, with the two words forming a contraction and the [p] leniting
Lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a kind of sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" . Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically...
into a [v] or [w].
See also
- ApostropheApostropheThe apostrophe is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets...
- BlendBlendIn linguistics, a blend is a word formed from parts of two or more other words. These parts are sometimes, but not always, morphemes.-Linguistics:...
- Clipping (morphology)Clipping (morphology)In linguistics, clipping is the word formation process which consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts . Clipping is also known as "truncation" or "shortening."...
- Contractions of negated auxiliary verbs in EnglishContractions of negated auxiliary verbs in EnglishThe contraction of negated auxiliary verbs in English is most often achieved by suffixing "-n't", an abbreviated form of "not", to the root of a verb with or without changes to the root...
- List of English contractions
- ElisionElisionElision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
- List of common English usage misconceptions
- Poetic contraction
- Portmanteau wordPortmanteau wordA portmanteau or portmanteau word is a blend of two words or morphemes into one new word. A portmanteau word typically combines both sounds and meanings, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog. More generally, it may refer to any term or phrase that combines two or more meanings...
- Relaxed pronunciationRelaxed pronunciationRelaxed pronunciation is a phenomenon that happens when the syllables of common words are slurred together...
- SynalephaSynalephaA synalepha or synaloepha is the merging of two syllables into one, especially when it causes two words to be pronounced as one.The original meaning in Greek is more general than modern usage, and also includes coalescence of vowels within a word...
- Syncope (phonetics)
External links
- ZoomAstronomy.com, Common English contractions.