Elision in the French language

In French, elision is the suppression of a final unstressed vowel (usually ) immediately before another word beginning with a vowel or a muted h. 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 written French, elision (both phonetic and orthographic) is obligatory for the following words:
*the definite articles and
** ("the boy"), ("the girl")
** + → ("the tree"), + → ("the church")
*the subject pronouns and (when they occur before the verb)
**. ("I sleep") . ("That would be great.")
**. ("I slept.") . ("It was great.")
**but: ? ("Did I imagine?"), ? ("Is that useful?")
*the object pronouns , , , , and (when they occur before the verb)
**. ("Jean shaves himself, sees her, phones me.")
**. ("Jean shaved himself, saw her, phoned me.")
**but: . ("Look at him one more time.")
*the object pronouns when they occur after an imperative verb and before the pronoun or :
** . ("Put it, give me them, scram.")
** . ("Put it there, give me some, leave.")
*the negative marker
**. ("She isn't talking anymore.")
**. ("She won't stop talking.")
*the preposition
**. ("Jean's father just left.")
**. ("Albert's father just arrived.")
* (which has many different functions)
**. ("What are you saying? That Jean does nothing but eat.")
**. ("What did you say? That we only had one more week left.")
*The conjunction plus the pronouns and
** ("if she likes cats")
** ("if he/they like cats")

Elision is indicated in the spelling of some compound words, such as "peninsula", "today", and "someone".

At the beginnings of words, the aspirated h forbids elision.
Example: .
The mute h, however, requires elision.
Example: .
Both types of "h" are silent regardless.

Informal French

Elision of the second-person singular subject pronoun , before the verbs beginning with a vowel or mute h (silent h), and of the particle of negation , is very common in informal speech, but is avoided in careful speech and never used in formal writing:
* . "You decided to visit them, you went to see the film, you were not there, I don't know." (careful speech)
* T'as décidé de lui rendre visite, t'es allé voir le film, t'étais pas là, je sais pas. (informal speech)

See also

* Liaison (French)
* Elision — broader discussion of elision in other languages

References

* Maurice Grevisse, ''Le Bon Usage'', 14th edition by André Goosse, de Boeck, 2007, {{ISBN, 978-2-8011-1404-9

French language
Silent letters

fr:Élision