Contraction (grammar)

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This article is about contraction in the grammar of modern languages, which involves elision. For
contraction in Ancient Greek and the coalescence of two vowels into one, see crasis. For the
linguistic function of pronouncing vowels together, see Synaeresis.

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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 and sounds.
In linguistic analysis, contractions should not be confused
with crasis, abbreviations nor acronyms (including initialisms), with which they share
some semantic and phoneticfunctions, though all three are connoted by the term "abbreviation" in
loose parlance.[1] Contraction is also distinguished from clipping, where beginnings and endings are
omitted.
The definition overlaps with the grammatical term portmanteau (a linguistic blend), but a distinction
can be made between a portmanteau and a contraction by noting that contractions are formed from
words that would otherwise appear together in sequence, such as do and not, whereas a
portmanteau word is formed by combining two or more existing words that all relate to a singular
concept which the portmanteau describes.

Contents
[hide]

 1English
 2Chinese
 3French
 4Hebrew
 5Italian
 6Spanish
 7Portuguese
 8German
o 8.1Local languages in German-speaking areas
 9Norwegian
 10Latin
 11Japanese
 12Polish
 13Uyghur
 14Filipino/Tagalog
 15See also
 16References

English[edit]
Main article: English auxiliaries and contractions
English 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 commonly used in speech and in informal
writing, though 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).

Full
Contracted Notes
form

informal; Irregular forms: "ain't", "won't", "shan't", "amn't". "n't" can only be attached
not -n't
to an auxiliary verb which is itself not contracted.

let us let's informal, as in "Let's do this."

I am I'm informal, as in "I'm here."

informal; we're /wɪər/ or /wɛər/ is, in most cases, pronounced differently

are -'re
from were /wɜr/.

does informal, as in "What's he do there every day?"

is -'s informal, as in "He's driving right now."

has informal, as in "She's been here before."

have -'ve informal, as in "I've got two left."

had informal, as in "He'd already gone."

did -'d informal, as in "Where'd she go?"

would informal, as in "We'd like to go."

will -'ll informal, as in "I'll call you later."

of o' / -a informal, as in "cup o' coffee," "barrel o' monkeys," "Land o' Goshen," "lots o' luck"

~ the ~ 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 informal, actually from hem, which is not the same word as them, a Norse loan.[2][3]

you y'- informal, as in "Where are y'all at?"

Some other simplified pronunciations of common word groups, which can often equally be described
as cases of elision, may also be considered (non-standard) contractions (not enshrined into the
written standard language, but frequently expressed in written form anyway), such
as wanna for want to, gonna for going to, y'all for you all, ya'll for ya all in the Southern United
States and others common forms in colloquial speech.
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[edit]
Contractions exist in Classical Chinese, some of which are used in modern Chinese.

Full
Transliteration[5] Contraction[4] Transliteration[5] Notes[4]
Form[4]

In some rarer cases 諸 can also be

contraction for 有之乎. 諸 can be used on
之乎 tjə ga 諸 tjᴀ
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.

Rare. The prepositions 於, 于, and 乎 are

of different origin, but used
于之 wja tjə 爰 wjan
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

弗 and 勿 were originally not contractions,

毋之 mja tjə 勿 mjət but were reanalyzed as contractions in
the Warring States period.

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.

Also written 耶. Probably a dialectal

也乎 ljᴀjʔ ga 邪 zjᴀ
variant of 與.

不乎 pjə ga 夫 pja 夫 has many other meanings.

Contractions also appear in Cantonese, for example, 乜嘢[6] and 咩.

French[edit]
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 ("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 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 (IPA: [ʒənəsɛpa], "I don't know") may be pronounced roughly chais
pas (IPA: [ʃɛpa]), with the ne being completely elided and the [ʒ] of je being mixed with
the [s] of sais.[original research?] 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[edit]
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[edit]
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.

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) (cogl') (colle)

(pel) / (pello) / (pella) / (pell') / (pei) / (pegli) / (pegl') /

per (pelle)
(pil) (pillo) (pilla) (pill') (pie) (pigli) (pigl')

 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 any word that begins with e are contracted into one single, deleting the e of the
principal word, dove (dov'). Equally come does be made so. As well other words may be contracted
the same these two, like quale, and other ones, etcetera.

Spanish[edit]
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 sets of demonstrative pronouns originated as
contractions of aquí (here) + pronoun, or pronoun + otro/a (other): aqueste, aqueso, estotro etc. The
modern aquel (that, masc.) is the only survivor of the first pattern; the personal
pronouns nosotros (we) and vosotros (pl. you) are remnants of the second. In medieval texts
unstressed words very often appear contracted: todol for todo el(all the, masc.), ques for que
es (which is); etc. including with common words, like d'ome (d'home/d'homme) instead de ome
(home/homme), and so on.
Though not strictly a contraction, a special form is used when combining con with mí, ti or sí which is
written as conmigo for *con mí (with me), contigo for *con ti (with you sing.), consigo for *con sí (with
himself/herself/itself/themselves (themself).
Finally, one can hear [clarification needed] pa' for para, deriving as pa'l for para el, but these forms are only
considered appropriate in informal speech.

Portuguese[edit]
In Portuguese, contractions are common and much more numerous than those in Spanish. 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[edit]
In informal, spoken German prepositional phrases, one can often merge the preposition and
the article; for example, von dem becomes vom, zu dem becomes zum, or an dasbecomes ans.
Some of these are so common that they are mandatory. In informal speech, aufm for auf
dem, unterm for unter dem, etc. are also used, but would be considered to be incorrect if written,
except maybe in quoted direct speech, in appropriate context and style.
The pronoun es often contracts to 's (usually written with the apostrophe) in certain contexts. For
example, the greeting Wie geht es? is usually encountered in the contracted form Wie geht's?.
Local languages in German-speaking areas[edit]
Regional dialects 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. (One must remember, however, that German wir exists
alongside Bavarian mir, or mia, with the same meaning.) The Munich-born footballer Franz
Beckenbauer has as his catchphrase "Schau mer mal" ("Schauen wir einmal" - in English "let's have
a look"). A book about his career had as its title the slightly longer version of the phrase, "Schau'n
Mer Mal".
Such features are found in all central and southern language regions. A sample from Berlin: Sag
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 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 Lass
mich gehen, habe ich gesagt may become 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 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.
Norwegian[edit]
The use of contractions is not allowed in any form of standard Norwegian spelling; however, it is
fairly common to shorten or contract words in spoken language. Yet, the commonness varies from
dialect to dialect and from sociolect to sociolect—it depends on the formality etc. of the setting.
Some common, and quite drastic, contractions found in Norwegian speech are "jakke" (approximate
pronunciation in English: "yakkeh") for "jeg har ikke" ("I have not", normally pronounced
approximately like "yay har ikkeh") and "dække" (approximate pronunciation in English: "dakkeh") for
"det er ikke" ("it is not", normally pronounced approximately like "deh ar ikkeh"). The most frequently
used of these contractions—usually consisting of two or three words condensed into one word by
skipping certain letters (like the examples just shown)—contain short and common words like "jeg"
("I"), "du" or "deg" ("you"), "det" ("it" or "that"), "har" ("have" or "has") or "ikke" ("not").
In extreme cases, long, entire sentences may be condensed into one word by removing consonants,
vowels and spaces alike. One example of this is a sentence like (approximate English translation) "It
will sort itself out.": "Det ordner seg av seg selv.", "correctly" pronounced approximately like "Deh vill
ordneh say ahv say sell", in standard written Bokmål could become (note that this is essentially a
combination of contraction, fast speech and dialect) "dånesæsæsjæl" (note the "å (Å)" and "æ (Æ)"
letters and the "sjæl" ("sj" is one of many Norwegian digraphs used to represent "sh") at the end, as
a replacement for "selv", which is pronounced with a "thick l" ("tjukk l" or "tykk l" in Norwegian)). R-
dropping (which is present in the above example) is especially common in speech in many areas of
Norway, but plays out in different ways, as does skipping of word-final letters, generally, like that of
"e" in certain verbs.
Because of the many dialects of Norwegian and their widespread use it is often difficult to distinguish
between non-standard writing of standard Norwegian and eye dialect (or writing in one's own dialect
as opposed to adhering to the well-defined rules of the written language). It is almost universally true
that these spellings try to convey the way each word is pronounced, but it is rare to see language
written that does not adhere to at least some of the rules of the official writing spelling. There are
probably four main reasons for this: 1. some words are not pronounced as they are spelled in the
first place, 2. pronunciation that is impossible or only ambiguously possible to convey using solely
combinations of the 29 letters of the Norwegian alphabet, 3. it is sometimes practical to utilise certain
rules from standard spelling/pronunciation rules (for example digraphs and diphthongs (even though
the latter is usually much more problematic than the former) to increase the number of phonemes at
disposal) for ease of writing and interpreting said writing or 4. laziness, ignoranceon the part of the
writer of the fact that strictly speaking how they write a certain word is not the best representation of
the desired pronunciation or accommodation of a perceived lack of understanding of the connection
between spelling and pronunciation on part of the reader.
Misinterpreting someone else's writing may cause a slowing down of the reading pace, having a
hard time understanding and use of incorrect pronunciations. It is of great importance to "play by the
same rules" to avoid confusion. The "rules", however, are rarely stated by "non-standard-writers"
and this is as a consequence another reason to stick with the official writing conventions. That many
dialects lack certain letters in words that are used in others and the official spellings of Norwegian
leads some to conclude that spelling of these dialects should not contain that letter and others to
conclude that their way of speaking is non-standard, when, in fact, the truth might be that every
dialect is just as standard as the next. This last assertion is based on a view of the origin of
Norwegian spelling as being the average of all the dialects (which is not technically and completely
true) or simply that while one dialect differs from "the norm" pertaining to certain aspects while others
differ on certain other features instead.
The use of the apostrophe (') is much less common than in English, but is sometimes used in
contractions to show where letters have been left out (like in English). It is also worth noting that
Norwegian uses apostrophes less in other situations as well (it is not normally used to show the
possessive, for instance). Norwegian also does not use accents to denote stress etc. excepts for in a
few loan words (foreign words) etc. Things like these might be reasons for the hard time people have
if they try to spell a word phonetically.
There is a common misconception among many Norwegians that Norwegian is a very phonetically
accurate language. This is probably based both on the common knowledge that Norwegian has a
more widespread use of letters like F, K and S; disfavouring letters like C, Q, X and digraphs
like PH (compared to English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Swedish and Danish, which
are (some of) the languages Norwegians are most familiar with); and that most Norwegians are so
familiar with the Norwegian language that they don't realise the great difference between the written
and spoken language. What many native Norwegian speakers do not realise, though, is that
Norwegian actually has a huge number of diphthongs, silent letters and more or less unpredictable
both vowel and consonant sounds.

Latin[edit]
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 non volo (volomeaning “I want”).
Similarly this is observed in the first person plural and third person plural forms (nolumus and nolunt
respectively).

Japanese[edit]
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

～ている／～ていた／ -te iru / -te ita / -te imasu / ～てる／～てた／～て -te ru / -te ta / -te
～ています／etc. etc. ます／etc. masu / etc.

～ていく／～ていった ～てく／～てった／
-te iku / -te itta / etc.* -te ku / -te tta / etc.*
／etc.* etc.*

～ておく／～ておいた -te oku / -te oita / -te ～とく／～といた／～ -toku / -toita / -

／～ておきます／etc. okimasu / etc. ときます／etc. tokimasu / etc.

～てしまう／～てしま
-te shimau / -te shimatta / - ～ちゃう／～ちゃった -chau / -chatta / -
った／～てしまいます
te shimaimasu / etc. ／～ちゃいます／etc. chaimasu / etc.
／etc.
～でしまう／～でしま
-de shimau / -de shimatta / - ～じゃう／～じゃった -jau / -jatta / -
った／～でしまいます
de shimaimasu / etc. ／～じゃいます／etc. jaimasu / etc.
／etc.

～ては -te wa ～ちゃ -cha

～では -de wa ～じゃ -ja

～なくては -nakute wa ～なくちゃ -nakucha

* 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:

 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／～っつー (-tte/-te/-ttsū) 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 also use their own specific contractions which are often unintelligible to
speakers of other dialects.
Polish[edit]
In the Polish language pronouns have contracted forms which are more prevalent in their colloquial
usage. Examples are go and mu. The non-contracted forms are niego and jemu, respectively.
The clitic -ń which stands for niego (him) as in dlań (dla niego) is more common in literature. The
non-contracted forms are generally used as a means to accentuate.[7]

Uyghur[edit]
Uyghur, a Turkic language spoken in Central Asia, includes some verbal suffixes that are actually
contracted forms of compound verbs (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].[original research?]

Filipino/Tagalog[edit]
In Filipino, most contractions need other words to be contracted correctly. Only words that end with
vowels can make a contraction with words like "at" and "ay." In this chart, the "@" represents any
vowel.

Full Form Contracted Notes

~@ at ~@'t

~@ ay ~@'y

~@ ng ~@'n Informal. as in "Isa'n libo"

~@ ang ~@'ng

See also[edit]
For a list of words relating
to Contractions, see
the English
contractionscategory of
words in Wiktionary, the
free dictionary.

 Apostrophe
 Blend
 Clipping (morphology)
  Contractions of negated auxiliary verbs in English
 Elision
 List of common English usage misconceptions
 Poetic contraction
 Portmanteau word
 Relaxed pronunciation
 Synalepha
 Syncope (phonetics)

References[edit]
1. Jump up^ Roberts R; et al. (2005). New Hart's Rules: The handbook
of style for writers and editors. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-
861041-6. :p.167
2. Jump up^ "Online Etymology Dictionary". Retrieved 27 May 2016.
3. Jump up^ "Online Etymology Dictionary". Retrieved 27 May 2016.
4. ^ Jump up to:a b c Edwin G. Pulleyblank (1995). Outline of Classical
Chinese Grammar. University of British Columbia Press. ISBN 978-0-
7748-0505-6.
5. ^ Jump up to:a b Old Chinese reconstruction search containing William
H. Baxter's reconstructions.
6. Jump up^ "乜嘢". Retrieved 27 May 2016.
7. Jump up^ http://nkjp.pl/settings/papers/NKJP_ksiazka.pdf (p.82)
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