Contraction (grammar)

A contraction is a shortened version of the spoken and written forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters and sounds.

In linguistic analysis, contractions should not be confused with crasis, abbreviations and initialisms (including acronyms), with which they share some semantic and phonetic functions, though all three are connoted by the term "abbreviation" in layman’s terms. Contraction is also distinguished from morphological clipping, where beginnings and endings are omitted.

The definition overlaps with the term portmanteau''), but a distinction can be made between a portmanteau has a number of contractions, mostly involving the elision of a vowel (which is replaced by an apostrophe in writing), as in ''I'm'' for "I am", and sometimes other changes as well, as in ''won't'' for "will not" or ''ain't'' for "am not". These contractions are common in speech and in informal writing, but tend to be avoided in more formal writing (with limited exceptions, such as the mandatory form of "o'clock").

The main contractions are listed in the following table (for more explanation see English auxiliaries and contractions).

Contraction is a type of elision, simplifying pronunciation through reducing (dropping or shortening) sounds occurring to a word group.

In subject–auxiliary inversion, the contracted negative forms behave as if they were auxiliaries themselves, changing place with the subject. For example, the interrogative form of ''He won't go'' is ''Won't he go?'', whereas the uncontracted equivalent is ''Will he not go?'', with ''not'' following the subject.

Chinese

The Old Chinese writing system (oracle bone script and bronzeware script) is well suited for the (almost) one-to-one correspondence between morpheme and glyph. Contractions, in which one glyph represents two or more morphemes, are a notable exception to this rule. About twenty or so are noted to exist by traditional philologists, and are known as ''jiāncí'' (兼詞, lit. 'concurrent words'), while more words have been proposed to be contractions by recent scholars, based on recent reconstructions of Old Chinese phonology, epigraphic evidence, and syntactic considerations. For example, 非 ēihas been proposed to be a contraction of 不 (bù) + 唯/隹 (wéi/zhuī). These contractions are not generally graphically evident, nor is there a general rule for how a character representing a contraction might be formed. As a result, the identification of a character as a contraction, as well as the word(s) that are proposed to have been contracted, are sometimes disputed.

As vernacular Chinese dialects use sets of function words that differ considerably from Classical Chinese, almost all classical contractions listed below are now archaic and have disappeared from everyday use. However, modern contractions have evolved from these new vernacular function words. Modern contractions appear in all the major modern dialect groups. For example, 别 (bié) 'don't' in Standard Mandarin is a contraction of 不要 (bùyào), while 覅 (fiào) 'don't' in Shanghainese is a contraction of 勿要 (wù yào), as is apparent graphically. Similarly, in Northeast Mandarin 甭 (béng) 'needn't' is both a phonological and graphical contraction of 不用 (bùyòng). Finally, Cantonese contracts 乜嘢 (mat1 ye5) 'what?' to 咩 (me1).

;Table of Classical Chinese contractions

Dutch

Some of the contractions in standard Dutch:

Informal Belgian Dutch utilizes a wide range of non-standard contractions, such as, for example, "hoe's't" (from "hoe is het?" - how are you?), "hij's d'r" (from "hij is daar" - he's there), "w'ebbe' goe' g'ete'" (from "we hebben goed gegeten" - we had eaten well) and "wa's da'?" (from "wat is dat?" - what is that?. Some of these contractions:

French

The French language has a variety of contractions, similar to English but mandatory, 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'' or ''la'' → ''l'-'' ("the"; or "he", "she", "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''.

''Moi'' ("me") and ''toi'' (informal "you") 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 conjunction ''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'' (, "I don't know") may be pronounced roughly ''chais pas'' (), with the ''ne'' being completely elided and the of ''je'' being mixed with the of ''sais''. It is also common in informal contexts to contract ''tu'' to ''t'-'' before a vowel, e.g., ''t'as mangé'' for ''tu as mangé''.

Hebrew

In Modern Hebrew, the prepositional prefixes -בְּ /bə-/ 'in' and -לְ /lə-/ 'to' contract with the definite article prefix -ה (/ha-/) to form the prefixes -ב /ba/ 'in the' and -ל /la/ 'to the'. In colloquial Israeli Hebrew, the preposition את (/ʔet/), which indicates a definite direct object, and the definite article prefix -ה (/ha-/) are often contracted to 'ת (/ta-/) when the former immediately precedes the latter. Thus ראיתי את הכלב (/ʁaˈʔiti ʔet haˈkelev/, "I saw the dog") may become ראיתי ת'כלב (/ʁaˈʔiti taˈkelev/).

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 definite article, namely ''il'', ''lo'', ''la'', ''l','' ''i'', ''gli'', ''gl','' and ''le''.

* Contractions with ''a'', ''da'', ''di'', ''in'', and ''su'' are mandatory, but those with ''con'' and ''per'' are optional.
* Words in parentheses are no longer very commonly used. However, there's a difference between ''pel'' and ''pei'', which are old-fashioned, and the other contractions of ''per'', which are frankly obsolete. ''Col'' and ''coi'' are still common; ''collo'', ''colla'', ''cogli'' and ''colle'' are nowadays rare in the written language, but common in speaking.
* Formerly, ''gl was often used before words beginning with ''i'', however it is no longer in very common (written) 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 ''come'' are contracted with any word that begins with ''e'', deleting the ''-e'' of the principal word, as in "Com'era bello!" – "How handsome he / it was!", "Dov'è il tuo amico?" – "Where's your friend?" The same is often true of other words of similar form, e.g. ''quale''.

The direct object pronouns "lo" and "la" may also contract to form "l'" with a form of "avere", such as "L'ho comprato" - "I have bought it", or "L'abbiamo vista" - "We have seen her".

Spanish

Spanish 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'').

Other contractions were common in writing until the 17th century, the most usual being ''de'' + personal and demonstrative pronouns: ''destas'' for ''de estas'' (of these, fem.), ''daquel'' for ''de aquel'' (of that, masc.), ''dél'' for ''de él'' (of him) etc.; and the feminine article before words beginning with ''a-'': ''l'alma'' for ''la alma'', now ''el alma'' (the soul). Several