In traditional grammar, a contraction is the formation of a new word from two or more individual words. This often is a result of a common sequence of words, or, as in French, to maintain a flowing sound. However, contraction has gained a broader meaning both in linguistics and other areas of language research. Based on the latest definitions, contraction is shortening of a word, syllable, or word group by omission of internal letters. [ISO 4:1984] In linguistics, traditional grammar is a cover name for the collection of concepts and ideas about the structure of language that Western societies have received from ancient Greek and Roman sources. ... A word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetical value. ...

English

In English, contractions are commonly used in speech and informal writing. They are almost always either negations with not or combinations of pronouns with auxiliary verbs, and in these cases always include an apostrophe. In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun phrase. ... Verbs in the English language are a lexically and morphologically distinct part of speech which describes an action, an event, or a state. ...

The first category of contractions is those formed by an auxilliary verb or form of to be plus the word not, with the o replaced by an apostrophe, e.g. don't, can't, wouldn't, haven't. Notable exceptions include won't, shan't and ain't. Look up aint in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The second category is generally in the form of a pronoun (or occasionally a noun) plus an auxilliary verb or a form of to be, with the apostrophe replacing as few as one letter, as in it's for it is, or four letters, as in I'd for I would. Auxilliary verbs which can be contracted include will, would, shall, have/has, and had. It should be noted that in British English it is acceptable to form a contraction with the verb have even when it is used as the primary verb (as with the phrase "I've a date today"). In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun phrase. ... Noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which is defined in terms of how its members combine with other grammatical kinds of expressions. ... British English (BrE) is a broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere. ...

Although uncommon in written English, people often use complex contractions such as wouldn't've for would not have, or combining auxilliary verbs with nouns, e.g. John'd fix your TV if you asked him. Although these can look awkward in print, they are natural and frequently-heard colloquialisms.

The only commonly-used English contraction that does not fall into any 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 [someplace]"). 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. It has been suggested that prohibitive mood be merged into this article or section. ...

Many people writing English confuse the possessive form of the pronoun it with its contractions. The possessive form has no apostrophe (its), while the contraction of it is or it has does have an apostrophe (it's). See List of frequently misused English words. Possessive can refer to: Possessive case Possessive pronoun This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The meanings of words in the English language often change over time. ...

Outside the English contractions described above, contractions are virtually the same concept as portmanteaux. Look up portmanteau word in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

French

The French language has 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"). In general, any monosyllabic word-final, non-silent e will contract if the following word begins with a vowel. For example the common words que (qu'-), je (j'-), and de (d'-). Unlike in English, however, these contractions are standard and mandatory: one would never say (or write) *ce est or *que elle. French (français, langue française) is one of the most important Romance languages, outnumbered in speakers only by Spanish and Portuguese. ... Look up cest la vie in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Italian

Both French and Italian use a form of contraction combining the article le (French masculine form of "the") or la (French and Italian feminine form of "the"). For instance, in French, there is the phrase L'état c'est moi (Louis XIV: "I am the state," or, literally, "The state is me"). Sun King redirects here. ...

Spanish

Spanish also has some contractions, such as the variant trecientos (three hundred) for tres cientos. Spanish also has two mandatory phonetic contractions: 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).

Common Spanish, yet distinctly vulgar, slang holds another contraction, pa'que, which is a shortened form of para que, or "so that" or "in order that" or "just so". It is used, among other places, in the title for a documentary by Rosie Perez, «Yo soy Boricua, pa'que tú lo sepas!»^[1] ("I am Boricua, just so you know!", or less formally, "I'm a Boricua, just for your information!"). Rosa Maria Perez (born September 6, 1964) is an American actress, dancer, choreographer and director. ... Boricua a word of origin from Boriken (or Boriquén, Borinquen, or Borinquén) used by the original Taino Indian population to refer to Puerto Rico before the coming of the Spanish, which translated as The Valiant People of the Sacred House. The word has come to identify any resident...

A related contraction in Spanish is pa for the word para (for, in order). It can be found most notably in the Tito Puente song Oye como va. The lyrics containing the contraction are as follows: Tito Puente Ernesto Antonio Puente Jr. ...

This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. ...

Portuguese

In Portuguese, 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"), 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 German 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 incorrect if written, except maybe in quoted direct speech, in appropriate context and style. A prepositional phrase (PP) is a linguistic term for a phrase whose head is a preposition. ... An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. ...

Local Languages in German speaking areas

Regional dialects of German, and various local languages which usually were already used long before today's Standard German was built, 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 features several contractions like e.g. 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? Standard German is the prescriptive norm variant of the German language used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas. ... Subdivisions Northern Austro-Bavarian Central Austro-Bavarian Southern Austro-Bavarian Austro-Bavarian or Bavarian is an Upper Germanic language. ...

Several local languages along the Rhine have, possibly under influx of French, build contraction patterns involving up to entire sentences. In speech, words are often concatenated, frequently liaison is used. So, [Dat] kriegst Du nicht may become Kressenit, or Lohß mer jonn, han ich jesaat becomes Lomejon haschjesaat. West Central German (Westmitteldeutsch) is a High German dialect family in the German language. ... This article should be translated from material at fr:Liaison. ...

Mostly, there are no binding orthographies for local languages and dialects of German, so 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 posslbly degrade readability. The use of apostrophes to indicate omissions is varying, it is considerably less frequent than in English publications. The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of writing in that language. ...

Latin

There are several contractions in the Latin language. For example, the Latin verb "volo" (meaning "I want") would originally be negated by the phrase "non volo" (I do not want), however after years of elision, the phrase became the new word "nolo" (I do not want). This is seen in other uses of the verb, e.g. "volunt" (they want) originally being negated "non volunt" (They do not want), but becoming the contraction "nolunt" (they do not want). Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... In music, see elision (music). ...

Ancient Greek

In Ancient Greek there are several types of contraction, for example in verbs with a stem in ε (epsilon) affect their conjugations. There are also α (alpha) and ο (omicron) contractions in verbs, but ε contractions also happen in nouns and verbs. Example: phil-e-o, I love (Latin transcription for clarity). To the verb stem, phil-, usually the endings -ō, -eīs, -eī, -omen, -ete, -ousin are added. But with the -e-, they go to philō, phileīs, phileī, philoumen, phileite, philousi (that is, I love, you love, he loves, we love, you love, they love) Note: This article contains special characters. ... Look up Ε, ε in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up alfa, alpha in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Omicron (upper case Ο, lower case ο, literally small o) is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. ...

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:

The contracted form ～ちゃう/～じゃう (-chau/-jau) can itself be contracted in informal speech. The conjunctive form ～ちゃって/～じゃって (-chatte/-jatte) can be rendered as simply ～ちゃ/～じゃ (-cha/-ja), typically when telling people what not to do, e.g. 言っちゃダメ (yuccha dame) "You can't say that". Since the emphasis of this verb form is on the fact that something has been done and cannot be changed, there is typically no negative. However, for indicating obligation, which grammatically requires a negative form, the form ～なくちゃ (-nakucha) can be used, with or without an auxiliary e.g. 行かなくちゃ（いけない） (ikanakucha (ikenai)) "I have to go." This negative form can be further contracted to simply ～なきゃ (-nakya) 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 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.
• 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.

References

1. ^ Internet Movie Database

See also

• Relaxed pronunciation
• Elision
• Synalepha
• Contraction (phonology)