Elision of a word

In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run together by the omission of a final sound.^[1] An example is the elision of word-final /t/ in English if it is preceded and followed by a consonant: «first light» is often pronounced /fɜ:s laɪt/.^[2] Many other terms are used to refer to particular cases where sounds are omitted.

Citation forms and contextual forms[edit]

A word may be spoken individually in what is called the citation form. This corresponds to the pronunciation given in a dictionary. However, when words are spoken in context, it often happens that some sounds that belong to the citation form are omitted. Elision is not an all-or-nothing process: elision is more likely to occur in some styles of speaking and less likely in others.^[3] Many writers have described the styles of speech in which elision is most commonly found, using terms such as «casual speech»,^[4] «spontaneous speech»,^[5] «allegro speech»^[6] or «rapid speech».^[2] In addition, what may appear to be the disappearance of a sound may in fact be a change in the articulation of a sound that makes it less audible. For example, it has been said that in some dialects of Spanish the word-final -ado, as in cansado (tired) is pronounced /ado/ in citation form but the /d/ is omitted in normal speech, giving «cansao». More careful description will show that the Spanish phoneme /d/ is usually pronounced as a voiced dental fricative [ð] when it occurs between vowels. In casual speech it is frequently weakened to a voiced dental approximant [ð̞].^[7] The most extreme possibility is complete elision resulting in a diphthong with no observable consonantal tongue gesture.^[8] In this view, elision is the final stage in lenition or consonant weakening, the last phase of a cline or continuum describable as d > ð > ð̞ > ∅. Whether the elision is of vowel or consonant, if it is consistent through time, the form with elision may come to be accepted as the norm: tabula > tabla as in Spanish, mutare > muer («change, molt») in French, luna > lua («moon») in Portuguese.
It is usual to explain elision and related connected-speech phenomena in terms of the principle of least effort or «economy of effort». This concept has been stated as «If a word or expression remains perfectly intelligible without a certain sound, people tend to omit that sound.»^[9]

Historical elisions[edit]

There are various ways in which the present form of a language may reflect elisions that have taken place in the past. This topic is an area of diachronic linguistics. Such elisions may originally have been optional but have over time become obligatory (or mandatory). An example of historical elision in French that began at the phrasal level and became lexicalized is preposition de > d’ in aujourd’hui «today», now felt by native speakers to be one word, but deriving from au jour de hui, literally «at the day of today» and meaning «nowadays», although hui is no longer recognized as meaningful in French. In English, the word «cupboard» would originally have contained /p/ between /ʌ/ and /b/, but the /p/ is believed to have disappeared from the pronunciation of the word about the fifteenth century.^[10]

Contractions[edit]

In many languages there is a process similar but not identical to elision, called contraction, where common words that occur frequently together form a shortened pronunciation.^[11] This may be a historical case (for example, French «ce est» has become «c’est» /sɛ/ and it would now be incorrect to say «ce est» /sə ɛ/) or one that is still optional (in English, a speaker may say «that is» /ðæt ɪz/ or «that’s» /ðæts/). Contractions of both sorts are natural forms of the language used by native speakers and are often colloquial but not considered substandard.^[12] English contractions are usually vowel-less weak form words.^[12] In some cases the contracted form is not a simple matter of elision: for example, «that’s» as a contraction is made not only by the elision of the /ɪ/ of «is» but also by the change of final consonant from /z/ to /s/; «won’t» for «will not» requires not only the elision of the /ɒ/ of «not» but also the vowel change /ɪ/ → /oʊ/ and in English RP «can’t» and «shan’t» change vowel from /æ/ of «can» and «shall» to /ɑː/ in /kɑːnt/, /ʃɑːnt/. In some languages employing the Latin alphabet, such as English, the omitted letters in a contraction are replaced by an apostrophe (e.g., isn’t for is not). Written Greek marks elisions in the same way.

Elision in poetry[edit]

Elision is frequently found in verse. It is sometimes explicitly marked in the spelling, and in other cases has to be inferred from knowledge of the metre. Elisions occurred regularly in Latin, but were not written, except in inscriptions and comedy. Elision of a vowel before a word starting in a vowel is frequent in poetry, where the metre sometimes requires it. For example, the opening line of Catullus 3 is Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque, but would be read as Lugeto Veneres Cupidinesque (audio).^[13] There are many examples of poetic contraction in English verse of past centuries marked by spelling and punctuation. Frequently found examples are over > o’er and ever > e’er. Multiple examples can be seen in lines such as the following from Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray, published in 1751:

• Th’ applause of list’ning senates to command
• He gain’d from heav’n (’twas all he wish’d) a friend

Deletion[edit]

The term deletion is used in some modern work instead of elision.^[14] When contemporary or historic deletion is treated in terms of Generative phonology it is usual to explain the process as one of substituting zero for a phoneme, in the form of a phonological rule.^[15] The form of such rules is typically

X --> ∅ (i.e. the segment x becomes zero)

An example of a deletion rule (for /r/-deletion in English RP) is provided by Giegerich.^[16] If we start with the premise that the underlying form of the word «hear» has a final /r/ and has the phonological form /hɪər/, we need to be able to explain how /r/ is deleted at the end of «hear» but is not deleted in the derived word «hearing». The difference is between word-final /r/ in «hear», where the /r/ would form part of the rhyme of a syllable, and word-medial /r/ which would form the onset of the second syllable of «hearing». The following rule deletes /r/ in «hear», giving /hɪə/, but does not apply in the case of «hearing», giving /hɪərɪŋ/.

                rhyme
    /r/ --> ∅/  _____

Writing[edit]

Even though the effort that it takes to pronounce a word does not have any direct influence on writing, a word or phrase may be spelled in a way that reflects elisions. This happens in poetry, as explained above, and in drama in order to reflect the presence of elisions or non-standard speech forms. The term eye dialect is sometimes used to refer to this practice.

Examples[edit]

English[edit]

Examples of elision in English:

Word	IPA before elision	IPA after elision
natural
laboratory (British English)
laboratory (American English)
temperature		, , sometimes
family
vegetable		or devoiced into
fifth
him
going to		(gonna)
it is, it has	,	(it’s)
I have		(I’ve)
is not		(isn’t)

Most elisions in English are not mandatory, but they are used in common practice and even sometimes in more formal speech. This applies to nearly all the examples in the above table. However, these types of elisions are rarely shown in modern writing and never shown in formal writing. In formal writing, the words are written the same whether or not the speaker would elide them, but in many plays and classic American literature, words are often written with an elision to demonstrate accent:

«Well, we ain’t got any,» George exploded. «Whatever we ain’t got, that’s what you want. God a’mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an’ work, an’ no trouble. No mess at all, and when the end of the month come I could take my fifty bucks and go into town and get whatever I want. Why, I could stay in a cathouse all night. I could eat any place I want, hotel or any place, and order any damn thing I could think of. An’ I could do all that every damn month. Get a gallon of whisky, or set in a pool room and play cards or shoot pool.» Lennie knelt and looked over the fire at the angry George. And Lennie’s face was drawn in with terror. «An’ whatta I got,» George went on furiously. «I got you! You can’t keep a job and you lose me ever’ job I get. Jus’ keep me shovin’ all over the country all the time.»

Other examples, such as him and going to shown in the table above, are generally used only in fast or informal speech. They are still generally written as is unless the writer intends to show the dialect or speech patterns of the speaker.

The third type of elision is in common contractions, such as can’t, isn’t, or I’m. The apostrophes represent the sounds that are removed and are not spoken but help the reader to understand that it is a contraction and not a word of its own. These contractions used to be written out when transcribed (i.e. cannot, is not, I am) even if they were pronounced as a contraction, but now they are always written as a contraction so long as they are spoken that way. However, they are by no means mandatory and a speaker or writer may choose to keep the words distinct rather than contract them either as a stylistic choice, when using formal register, to make meaning clearer to children or non-native English speakers, or to emphasize a word within the contraction (e.g. I am going!)

In non-rhotic accents of English, /r/ is dropped unless it’s followed by a vowel, making cheetah and cheater completely homophonous. In non-rhotic accents spoken outside of North America, many instances of correspond to in North American English as and are used instead of .

Finnish[edit]

The consonant in the partitive case ending -ta elides when it is surrounded by two short vowels except when the first of the two vowels involved is paragoge (added to the stem). Otherwise, it stays. For example, katto+ta → kattoa, ranta+ta → rantaa, but työ+tä → työtä (not a short vowel), mies+ta → miestä (consonant stem), jousi+ta → jousta (paragogic i on a consonant stem).

French[edit]

Elision of unstressed vowels (usually /ə/) is common in the French language and, in some cases, must be indicated orthographically with an apostrophe.

Elision of vowel and consonant sounds was also an important phenomenon in the phonological evolution of French. For example, s following a vowel and preceding another consonant regularly elided, with compensatory lengthening of the vowel.

• Latin hospitāle → Old French (h)ostel → Modern French hôtel
• Latin spatha → Old French espee → Modern French épée
• Latin schola → Old French escole → Modern French école

German[edit]

Nouns and adjectives that end with unstressed «el» or «er» have the «e» elided when they are declined or a suffix follows. ex. teuer becomes teure, teuren, etc., and Himmel + -isch becomes himmlisch.

The final e of a noun is also elided when another noun or suffix is concatenated onto it: Strafe + Gesetzbuch becomes Strafgesetzbuch.

In both of the above cases, the e represents a schwa.

Icelandic[edit]

Elision (brottfall) is common in Icelandic. There are a variety of rules for its occurrence,^[18] but the most notable is the loss of trailing consonants in common particles as well as the merger of similar vowel sounds. For example, the ubiquitous ég er að (verb) structure («I am verb-ing») becomes transformed to éra (verb); the full particles is spoken only when a person is sounding the sentence out word by word. Another noteworthy and extremely common example along this line includes the phrase er það ekki? («really?») which is pronounced as erþakki. A common example of internal consonant loss in Icelandic is gerðu svo vel («here you go», «please»), pronounced gjersovel (the hidden j sound is unrelated to the elision and occurs when a /kʰ/ or /k/ precedes /ɛ, i, ɪ, ai/). Another special case of elision is the loss of /θ/ from the start of þetta («this», «that»), which is sometimes pronounced etta (hvað er þetta (what is this?) -> hvaretta?). The pronunciation of the full word tends to lay emphasis on it («What is this?») while the elision of the word leads to its deemphasis («What is this?»). The loss of the /θ/ in þetta is similar to how /ð/ can be lost in «that» and «this» when asking a question and speaking swiftly in English.

Irish[edit]

Elision is found in the Ulster dialect of Irish, particularly in final position. Iontach, for example, while pronounced [ˈiːntəx] in the Conamara dialect, is pronounced [ˈintə] in Ulster. n is also elided when it begins intervocalic consonant clusters. Anró is pronounced aró; muintir is pronounced muitir.

Japanese[edit]

Elision is extremely common in the pronunciation of the Japanese language. In general, a high vowel (/i/ or /u/) that appears in a low-pitched syllable between two voiceless consonants is devoiced and often deleted outright. However, unlike French or English, Japanese does not often show elision in writing. The process is purely phonetic and varies considerably depending on the dialect or level of formality. A few examples (slightly exaggerated; apostrophes added to indicate elision):

松下さんはいますか？ Matsushita-san wa imasu ka? («Is Mr. Matsushita in?»)

Pronounced: matsush’tasanwa imas’ka

IPA: [matsɯɕi̥tasaɰ̃wa imasɯ̥ka]

失礼します Shitsurei shimasu («Excuse me»)

Pronounced: sh’tsureishimas’

IPA: [ɕi̥tsɯɾeː ɕimasɯ̥]

Gender roles also influence elision in Japanese. It is considered masculine to elide, especially the final u of the polite verb forms (-masu, desu), but women are traditionally encouraged to do the opposite. However, excessive elision is generally associated with lower prestige, and inadequate elision is seen as overly fussy or old-fashioned. Some nonstandard dialects, such as Satsuma-ben, are known for their extensive elision.

It is common for successive o sounds to be reduced to a single o sound, as is frequently encountered when the particle を (wo/o) is followed by the beautifying or honorific お (o).

Latin[edit]

Latin poetry featured frequent elision, with syllables being dropped to fit the meter or for euphony. Words ending in vowels would elide with the following word if it started with a vowel or h; words ending with -m would also be elided in the same way (this is called ecthlipsis).^[19][20] In writing, unlike in Greek, this would not be shown, with the normal spelling of the word represented. For instance, line 5 of Virgil’s Aeneid is written as «multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem«, even though it would be pronounced as «multa quoquet bello passus, dum conderet urbem«.

Other examples of elision in Latin literature include:

• Virgil’s Aeneid Book I, Line 3: «litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto » is pronounced «litora, multillet terris iactatus et alto «, where «multillet » comprises three long syllables, or one and a half spondees.
• Virgil’s Aeneid Book I, Line 11: «impulerit. tantaene animis caelestibus irae? » is pronounced «impulerit. tantaenanimis caelestibus irae? «, where «tantaenanimis » comprises three long syllables and two short syllables.
• Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book III, Line 557: «quem quidem ego actutum (modo vos absistite) cogam » is pronounced «quem quidegactutum (modo vos absistite) cogam «, where «quidegactutum » comprises two short syllables and a long syllable.
• Ovid’s Amores Book III, Poem VI, Line 101: «Huic ego, vae! demens narrabam fluminum amores! » is pronounced «Huic ego, vae! demens narrabam fluminamores! «.
• Catullus 73 line 6, «quam modo qui me unum atque unicum amicum habuit«, has elision connecting the final six words together.^[21]
• Caecilius Statius’s Ephesio (quoted in Cicero’s Cato Maior de Senectute 25) has the line: «Sentire ea aetate eumpse esse odiosum alteri» where there is elision between every word.^[22]
• A line from Lucilius (600 Marx; 728 Warmington) similarly has elision connecting all its words: «frigore inluvie inbalnitie inperfunditie incuria«.^[22]

Malayalam[edit]

Dropping sounds in connected speech by native speakers is very common in this language from Kerala, southern India. For example, entha becomes ntha and ippol becomes ippo.

Spanish[edit]

The change of Latin into the Romance languages included a significant amount of elision, especially syncope (loss of medial vowels). Spanish has these examples:

• tabla from Latin tabula
• isla from Latin insula (through *isula)
• alma from Latin anima (with dissimilation of -nm- to -lm-)
• hembra from Latin femina (with lenition of f- to h- to ∅, dissimilation of -mn- to -mr- and then epenthesis of -mr- to -mbr-)

In addition, speakers often employ crasis or elision between two words to avoid a hiatus caused by vowels: the choice of which to use depends upon whether or not the vowels are identical.

A 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, but both elisions 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, compared to the bailarín and cantante of standard Spanish. The perceived vulgarity of the silent d may lead to hypercorrections like *bacalado for bacalao (cod) or *Bilbado for Bilbao.^[23]

Tamil[edit]

Tamil has a set of rules for elision. They are categorised into classes based on the phoneme where elision occurs:

Class name	Phoneme
Kutriyalukaram	u
Kutriyalikaram	i
Aiykaarakkurukkam	ai
Oukaarakkurukkam	au
Aaythakkurukkam	the special character akh
Makarakkurukkam	m

Urdu[edit]

In Pakistan, elision has become very common in speech. Commonly used words have single consonants or syllables removed in casual speech and it is becoming more acceptable in formal settings due to an increasing understandability and use. Although not seen when writing in the Urdu script (Nastaleeq), it is often seen in Roman Urdu (Latin alphabet) as the latter is more similar to vernacular Urdu. Most elisions occur by removing a vowel or the consonant /h/ or a combination of the two. Some widely-used examples are:

Elision	Original	Original (Urdu)	Translation
Paṛo	Paṛho	پڑھو	Study
Ray	Rahay	رہے	Remain/(Present Participle)
Theekay	Theek Hai	ٹھیک ہے	Alright/Okay
May	Main	میں	I/Me
Ay	Hai	ہے	Is
Khamakha	Khawa Makhwa	خواہ مخواہ	Gratuitously

(The difference between the elision May and the original word Main is the lack of nasalization at the end in the former.)

In sentences, they may appear as:

Kya tum paṛ ray o? («Are you studying?») instead of «Kya tum paṛh rahay ho?»

Variations are also common where some individuals may prefer to pronounce a complete word such as «paṛh» while shortening the rest, depending on the preference of the person, their dialect, or their accent.

Welsh[edit]

Elision is a major feature of Welsh, found commonly in verb forms, such as in the following examples:

• Ydych chi’n (chi yn) hoffi’r (hoffi yr) coffi? — ‘Do you like the coffee?’ (The definitite article is always ‘r after a vowel even when the next word begins with a consonant, e.g. Mae’r gath yn sgramo — ‘the cat is scratching’, but y gath ddu — ‘the black cat’.
• Ble mae’r (mae yr) dre? — ‘Where is the town?’
• (Ry)dw i’n (i yn) darllen. — ‘I am reading’

Elision of word-final -f is almost always found in spoken Welsh to the point where the words are spelt with optional final -f in words like gorsa(f), pentre(f) and has been eradicated from the inflected prepositions: arna i, not *arnaf i — ‘on me’, etc. These always retain their final -f in the literary register, however.

Welsh also displays elision of initial syllables in singular/plural or collective/singulative pairs where the plural or singulative becomes longer than two syllables. This, however, is now restricted to specific nouns and is not productive. E.g. hosan / sanau — ‘sock / socks’ where the initial ho- has been lost in the plural; adar / deryn — ‘birds / a bird’ where the initial a- has been lost in the singulative.

[edit]

References[edit]

General references[edit]

• Crowley, Terry (1997). An Introduction to Historical Linguistics (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-558378-7.

External links[edit]

• French examples (contains pop-up ad)
• Greek Grammar
• Putting Words Together
• List of words said with Relaxed Pronunciation — also includes contractions

Elision and its Functions

In colloquial English, the sonant [ r ] is sometimes pronounced after the vowels [ə] and [ɔ:] before the following vowel if the letter “r” is not present in the spelling of the word, for example, ˈAfrica a nd ˋAsia [ˈæfrɪk ə ʳ ən ˋeiʃə], I ˈs aw a ˋman [aɪ ˈs ɔ : ʳ ə ˋmæn]. This phenomenon is known as intrusive r ( Intrusive r). Elision in phonetics

In fluent colloquial speech, some consonants often drop out. This is a phonetic phenomenon is called Elisa ( Elision )

Elision is the removal of an unstressed syllable, consonants, or letters from a word or phrase, for the purpose of decreasing the number of letters or syllables when mixing words together. The missing letter is replaced by an apostrophe. Generally, the middle or end letter or syllable is eliminated, or two words are blended together, and an apostrophe is inserted.

Usually used deliberately, elisions are often found in prose and poetry with the objective to continue a regular meter, or to create flow in iambic pentameter. Since a specific meter is required, elision is employed to achieve the set number of syllables necessary to create flow in a piece. Several other languages use elision to cut down the number of words or to improve the flow of speech.

a) elision [t] between consonants:

1. [st] + plosive consonants : last time [ˈlɑ: s ˋtaɪm], fast bus [ˈfɑ: s ˋbʌs];
2. [st] + nasal sonants : best man [ˈbes ˋmæn], first night [ˈfɜ: s ˋnaɪt];
3. [st] + slotted consonants : west side [ˈwes ˋsaɪd], best friend [ˈbes ˋfrend];
4. [ft] + plosive consonants : lift boy [ˈlɪf ˋbɔɪ], stuffed chicken [ˈstʌf ˋʧɪkɪn];
5. [ft] + nasal sonants : soft mattress [ˈsɒf ˋmætrəs], left knee [ˈlef ˋni:];
6. [ft] + slotted consonants : left shoe [ˈlef ˋʃu:], soft snow [ˈsɒf ˋsnəʊ].

b) elision [d] between consonants: Elision in phonetics

1. [nd] + nasal sonants : blind man [ˈblaɪn ˋmæn], kind nurse [ˈkaɪn ˋnɜ: s];
2. [nd] + voiced explosive : tinned beans [ˈtɪn ˋbi: nz], stand guard [ˈstæn ˋgɑ: d];
3. [md] + nasal sonants : skimmed milk [ˈskɪm ˋmɪlk], he seemed nice [hi: ˈsi: m ˋnaɪs];
4. [md] + voiced plosives : it seemed good [ɪt ˈsi: m ˋgʊd], he climbed back [hi: ˈklaɪm ˋbæk].Elision in phonetics

c) elision [t], [d] between other plosive consonants:

1. locked car [ˈlɒk ˋkɑ:], strict parents [ˈstrɪk ̀peərənts], he stopped behind [hi: ˈstɔ: p bɪˋhaɪnd];

d) historical elision within words:

grandmother [ˋgrænmʌðə], handsome [ˋhænsəm], castle [ˋkɑ: sł], postman [ˋpəʊsmən], draughtsman [ˋdrɑ: fsmən], sandwich [ˈsænwɪtʃ].

Examples of historical elision are also the loss of consonants [w, k, g] at the beginning of a word ( knee [ni:] , write [ra ɪ t] , gnat [n ӕ t]) ; consonant sounds [t] and [d] in combinations of three consonants in the middle of a word ( listen [l ɪsn] , Wednesday [‘wenzdɪ] , often [ɒfn]) ; the consonant [b] in combination [mb] at the end of words ( lamb [læm] , dumb [dʌm] , tomb [tu: m] , comb [kəʊm]) .Elision in phonetics

e-Explosive consonants

[t], [d] at the end of words can occur in fluent colloquial speech when they are followed by a word starting with a consonant sound: last time [ˈla: s ˈta ɪ m ], next day [ˈneks ˈde ɪ], old man [ˈəʊl ˈmæn ], kept quiet [ˈkep ˈkwa ɪ ət]

The guttural consonant [h] is often not pronounced in personal and possessive pronouns and verbs in an unstressed position: he, his, him, her, have, has had. Tell him [ tel ɪ m ].

f-Vowels can also be elusive. Elision in phonetics

The most common vowel articulation is [] and [ə]: different [‘ d ɪ f ə rent ] → [‘ d ɪ fr ə nt ], similar [‘ s ɪ m ɪ l ə] → [‘ s ɪ ml ə ] .

Difference Between Contraction and Elision

By merely looking at contraction and elision examples, one would think the two are the same. However, there is a slight difference between them. Contraction is a more general term referring to the combination of two words to form a shorter word. For instance, can’t is a contraction of “can” + “not,” which is a combination of two words. On the other hand, elision is a specific term. It is the omission of sounds, syllables, or phrases, and replacing them with an apostrophe. For instance, ne’er is an elided form of “never.” Similarly, gonna is an elision of the phrase “going to.”Elision in phonetics

Examples of Elision

For example, the contraction “to” replaces “the” after the elision of the letter “e”.

Another example is “de + el” which is replaced by “del”

Sometimes it is used in the sense of ellipsis, which is the suppression, usually because it is understood, of a word or element of the sentence without losing its grammatical correction.

For example, in the sentence “I live in the city and she in the country”, there is an elision of the verb “live” because it is understood. Elision in phonetics

Examples of Elision in Literature Elision in phonetics

Example #1: Rape of Lock (By Alexander Pope

“What dire offence from am’rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing—This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:
This, ev’n Belinda may vouchsafe to view…

Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
A well-bred lord t’assault a gentle belle?
O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor’d,
Could make a gentle belle reject a lord…

Sol thro’ white curtains shot a tim’rous ray,
And op’d those eyes that must eclipse the day;
Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake…”

In this excerpt, Pope has elided several words, such as amorous, which is elided into “am’rous,” even into “ev’n,” unexplored into “unexplor’d,” and similarly, through and opened are shortened to maintain regular pentameter.Elision in phonetics

Example #2: Dr. Faustus (By Christopher Marlowe)

“Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin
To sound the depth of that thou wilt profess:
Having commenc’d, be a divine in show,
Sweet Analytics, ’tis thou hast ravish’d me!
Is, to dispute well, logic’s chiefest end?
Then read no more; thou hast attain’d that end:
Be a physician, Faustus; heap up gold,
Why, Faustus, hast thou not attain’d that end?
Whereby whole cities have escap’d the plague,
And thousand desperate maladies been cur’d?
The god thou serv’st is thine own appetite,
Wherein is fix’d the love of Belzebub:
To him I’ll build an altar and a church…”

Elision is employed perfectly in Dr.Faustus. In this excerpt, the author has eliminated unstressed syllables in order to give a smooth flow to the speech. The elided words are marked in bold.

Elision means the dropping of a sound or sounds, either within a word
or at a junction of words in rapid colloquial speech. Formal speech
tends to retain the full form under the influence of spelling.

1. A group of consonants may be reduced by an
   elision. We find an elision of “t” and “d” between two other
   consonants: friends – [frenz], [frendz] is also possible.

2. Pronouns with the initial h and the auxiliaries
   “have, has, had” lose h when they are unstressed within an
   utterance. [h] is pronounced in those words when they are initial in
   an utterance or when they are stressed.

3. Clusters of two identical consonants: a double
   consonant at a word junction must not be reduced by elision (what
   time). The two consonants should be run together smoothly without a
   break.

4. The elision of a consonant of a boundary cluster is regarded as a
   vulgarism (wonna, gonna, lemme, gimme).

In the following words the form reduced by elision is used in all
kinds of speech:

Handbag, sandwich, handsome, grandchildren,
grandparents, grandmother, landscape, landlord, grandfather,
grandson, father and mother, brother and sister, here and there,
bread and butter (in all these cases we observe the elision of [d]).

Notes:

1. The reduction of some consonant clusters was established long ago.
   The initial w (write), k (know), g (gnaw) may be dropped.

2. The final b is dropped in the cluster [mb]:
   climb.

3. We say [ofn] in rapid colloquial speech and
   [‘oftən]
   in careful, precise speech.

4. The plosives [t] and [d] in the clusters [-st, -ft, -nd, ld, zd,
   etc.] in final position when followed by a word with an initial
   consonant are often reduced in rapid speech [la:s taim].

8. Aspiration.

[P, t, k] in initial position in a stressed
syllable are accompanied by aspiration, i.e. a strong puff of breath
in a voiceless interval after the explosion of [p, t, k] before a
vowel. Aspiration is very strong before a strong long vowel or a
diphthong; it is weaker before a short vowel. It is less noticeable
before an unstressed vowel. If plosives are preceded by “s” there
is hardly any aspiration at all.

Palatalization.

Palatalization is the process of softening of a consonant before
front vowels, when the front part of the tongue is raised to the hard
palate. It should be remembered that English consonants (except
) are not palatalized, but before front, close or mid-level vowels
they are a bit clearer than before back vowels. To avoid
Palatalization it should be kept in mind that the front part of the
tongue should be raised only when the articulation of the consonant
is accomplished.

The notion of “dark” and “clear” [l].

When pronounced before consonants and in final positions “l” is
dark (in such cases the back part of the tongue is raised to the soft
palate giving a dark to the sound).

When “l” occurs before vowels or the sonorant [j] it is “clear”
(together with the tip of the tongue the front part of the tongue is
raised to the hard palate).

Linking “r”.

When a word ending in [ ] is immediately followed
by a word beginning with a vowel, the sound [r] is very often
inserted at the end of it, joining it to the next word. When the
ordinary spelling of the word ends in the letter “r” or “re”,
the inserted r-sound is called a linking [r]. When there is no
written “r” in spelling, the inserted r-sound is called an
intrusive [r] (the idea [r] of it). Learners of English are generally
not recommended to use intrusive [r], while the linking [r] is
recognized as a typical feature of English Standard Pronunciation.

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For other uses, see Elision (disambiguation).

«Elider» redirects here. For the fantasy novel, see Elidor.

Sound change and alternation
Metathesis (reordering) Quantitative metathesis (vowel length)
Lenition (weakening) Consonant gradation Consonant voicing and devoicing Assibilation L-vocalization (change of l to w) Debuccalization (loss of place)
Fortition (strengthening)
Epenthesis (addition) Anaptyxis (vowel) Excrescence (consonant) Prosthesis (initial) Paragoge (final) Unpacking Vowel breaking (diphthongization)
Elision (loss) Apheresis (initial) Syncope (medial) Apocope (final) Haplology (similar syllables) Fusion Cluster reduction
Cheshirisation (trace remains) Compensatory lengthening Nasalization Tonogenesis Floating tone
Assimilation Coalescence Coarticulation Palatalization (before front vowels) Velarization (before back vowels) Labialisation (before rounded vowels) Final devoicing (before silence) Metaphony (vowel harmony, umlaut) Consonant harmony
Dissimilation
Sandhi (boundary change) Liaison, linking R Consonant mutation Tone sandhi Hiatus Synalepha (contraction)  Elision (loss of one vowel) Crasis (writing change) Synaeresis (opposite: diaeresis) Synizesis (no writing change)
Rhotacism (z, d, or n → ɾ) Rhinoglottophilia (h or ʔ → Ṽ or ŋ)
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Elision is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sometimes, sounds may be elided for euphonic effect.

Elision is normally unintentional, but it may be deliberate. The result may be impressionistically described as «slurred» or «muted.»

An example of deliberate elision occurs in Latin poetry as a stylistic device. Under certain circumstances, such as one word ending in a vowel and the following word beginning in a vowel, the words may be elided together. Elision was a common device in the works of Catullus. For example, the opening line of Catullus 3 is: Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque, but would be read as Lugeto Veneres Cupidinesque.

The elided form of a word or phrase may become a standard alternative for the full form, if used often enough. In English, this is called a contraction, such as can’t from cannot. Contraction differs from elision in that contractions are set forms that have morphologized, but elisions are not.

A synonym for elision is syncope, though the latter term is most often associated with the elision of vowels between consonants (e.g., Latin tabula → Spanish tabla). Another form of elision is aphesis, which means elision at the beginning of a word (generally of an unstressed vowel).

Some morphemes take the form of elision. See disfix.

The opposite of elision is epenthesis, whereby sounds are inserted into a word to ease pronunciation.

A special form of elision called ecthlipsis is used in Latin poetry when a word ending in the letter «m» is followed by a word beginning with a vowel, e.g., «…et mutam nequiquam adloquerer cinerem.» = «…et mutam nequiquadloquerer cinerem.» — Catullus 101.

The omission of a word from a phrase or sentence is not elision but ellipsis or, more accurately, elliptical construction.

Written representation[]

Even though the effort that it takes to pronounce a word does not hold any influence in writing, a word or phrase may be spelled the same as it is spoken, for example, in poetry or in the script for a theatre play, in order to show the actual speech of a character. It may also be used in an attempt to transcribe non-standard speech. Also, some kinds of elision (as well as other phonological devices) are commonly used in poetry in order to preserve a particular rhythm.

In some languages employing the Latin alphabet, such as English, the omitted letters in a contraction are replaced by an apostrophe (e.g., isn’t for is not). Greek, which uses its own alphabet, marks elision in the same way.

Examples[]

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

English[]

Examples of elision in English:

comfortable:	/ˈkʌmfərtəbəl/	→ [/ˈkʌmftəɾbəl/] (rhotic English), [/ˈkʌmftəbəl/] (non-rhotic English)
fifth:	[/ˈfɪfθ/]	→ [/ˈfɪθ/]
him:	[/hɪm/]	→ [/ɪm/]
laboratory:	[/læˈbɔɾətɔɾi/]	→ [/ˈlæbɾətɔɾi/] (American English), [/ləˈbɔɾətɾi/] (British English)
temperature:	[/ˈtɛmpəɾətʃəɾ/]	→ [/ˈtɛmpəɾtʃəɾ/], [/ˈtɛmpɾətʃəɾ/]
vegetable:	[/ˈvɛdʒətəbəl/]	→ [/ˈvɛdʒtəbəl/, /ˈvɛtʃtəbəl/]

French[]

Main article: Elision in the French language

Elision of unstressed vowels is common in the French language, and accepted as part of the standard pronunciation and grammar in numerous cases.

German[]

Nouns and adjectives that end with unstressed «el» or «er» have the «e» elided when they are declined or a suffix follows. ex. teuer becomes teure, teuren, etc., and Himmel + -isch becomes himmlisch.

The final «e» of a noun is also elided when another noun or suffix is concatenated onto it. ex. Strafe + Gesetzbuch becomes Strafgesetzbuch.

In both of the above cases the «e» represents a schwa.

Japanese[]

Elision is extremely common in the pronunciation of the Japanese language. In general, a high vowel ([/i/] or [/u/]) that appears in a low-pitched syllable between two voiceless consonants is devoiced, and often deleted outright. However, unlike French or English, Japanese does not often show elision in writing. The process is purely phonetic, and varies considerably depending on the dialect or level of formality. A few examples (slightly exaggerated; apostrophes added to indicate elision):

Matsushita-san wa imasu ka? («Is Mr. Matsushita in?»)

Pronounced: matsush’tasanwa imas’ka

IPA: [matsɯɕtasɑ̃wa imasːka]

roku, shichi, hachi («six, seven, eight»)

Pronounced: rok’, shich’, hach’

IPA: [ɽokɯ̥ ɕitɕi̥ hatɕi̥]

Shitsurei shimasu («Excuse me»)

Pronounced: sh’ts’reishimas’

IPA: [ɕi̥tsɯ̥ɽeː ɕimasː]

Gender roles also influence elision in Japanese. It is considered masculine to elide, especially the final u of the polite verb forms (-masu, desu), whereas women are traditionally encouraged to do the opposite. However, excessive elision is generally viewed as basilectic, and inadequate elision is seen as overly fussy or old-fashioned. Some nonstandard dialects, such as Satsuma-ben, are known for their extensive elision.

Malayalam[]

Dropping of sounds in connected speech (as Elision) is very common in this south Indian language (of the state of Kerala).
Native Malayalam speakers are very much used to it.

Examples:

 "entha" becomes "ntha" 
 "ippol" becomes "ippo"

Spanish[]

The change of Latin into the Romance languages included a significant amount of elision, especially syncope (loss of medial vowels). In Spanish, for example, we have:

• tabla from Latin tabula
• isla from Latin insula (through *isula)
• alma from Latin anima (with dissimilation of -nm- to -lm-)
• hembra from Latin femina (with lenition of f- to h-, dissimilation of -mn- to -mr- and then epenthesis of -mr- to -mbr-‘

In addition, speakers often employ crasis or elision between two words to avoid a hiatus caused by vowels – the choice of which to use depends upon whether or not the vowels are identical.^{[citation needed]}

Tamil[]

Tamil has a set of rules for elision. They are categorised into classes based on the phoneme where elision occurs.

Class name	Phoneme
Kutriyalukaram	u
Kutriyalikaram	i
Aiykaarakkurukkam	ai
Oukaarakkurukkam	au
Aaythakkurukkam	the special character akh
Makarakkurukkam	m

Finnish[]

The consonant in the partitive case ending -ta elides when surrounded by two short vowels except when the first of the two vowels involved is paragoge (added to the stem). Otherwise, it stays. For example, katto+ta → kattoa, ranta+ta → rantaa, but työ+tä → työtä (not a short vowel), mies+ta → miestä (consonant stem), jousi+ta → jousta (paragogic i on a consonant stem).

Welsh[]

Elision is a major feature of Welsh, found commonly in verb forms, as in the following examples:

• Ydych chi’n (chi yn) hoffi’r (hoffi yr) coffi? (Do you like the coffee?)
• Be mae’r (mae yr) dre? (Where is the town?)
• Rydw i’n (i yn) darllen. (I am reading)

See also[]

• Apocope
• Sandhi
• Synalepha
• Relaxed pronunciation
• Contraction
• Crasis
• Liaison
• Elision in the French language
• Lacuna

References[]

Notes[]

General references[]

• Crowley, Terry. (1997) An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.

External links[]

elision

• French examples (contains pop-up ad)
• Greek Grammar
• Putting Words Together

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