Acontraction is a shortened version of the spoken and written forms of aword,syllable, orword group, created by omission of internal letters and sounds.

Inlinguistic analysis, contractions should not be confused withcrasis,abbreviations andinitialisms (includingacronyms), with which they share somesemantic andphonetic functions, though all three are connoted by the term "abbreviation" in layman’s terms.^[1] Contraction is also distinguished frommorphologicalclipping, where beginnings and endings are omitted.

Thedefinition overlaps with the termportmanteau (a linguisticblend), but a distinction can be made between aportmanteau and a contraction by noting that contractions are formed from words that would otherwise appear together in sequence, such asdo andnot, whereas a portmanteau word is formed by combining two or more existing words that all relate to a singular concept that the portmanteau describes.

English has a number of contractions, mostly involving theelision of a vowel, which is replaced by anapostrophe in writing, as inI'm for "I am", and sometimes other changes as well. Contractions are common in speech and in informal writing but tend to be avoided in moreformal writing (with limited exceptions, such as the now-standard form "o'clock").

The main contractions are listed in the following table.

Althoughcan't,wouldn't and other forms ending‑n't clearly started as contractions,‑n't is now neither a contraction (acliticized form) nor part of one but instead a negativeinflectional suffix. Evidence for this is (i)‑n't occurs only withauxiliary verbs, and clitics are not limited to particular categories or subcategories; (ii) again unlike contractions, their forms are not rule-governed but idiosyncratic (e.g.,will →won't, can →can't); and (iii) as shown in the table, the inflected and "uncontracted" versions may require different positions in a sentence.^[4]

TheOld Chinese writing system (oracle bone script andbronzeware script) is well suited for the (almost) one-to-one correspondence betweenmorpheme andglyph. Contractions in which one glyph represents two or more morphemes are a notable exception to that rule. About 20 or so are noted to exist by traditionalphilologists and are known asjiāncí (兼詞, lit. 'concurrent words'), and more words have been proposed to be contractions by recentscholars, based on recent reconstructions of Old Chinese phonology, epigraphic evidence, and syntactic considerations. For example, 非 [fēi] has been proposed to be a contraction of 不 (bù) + 唯/隹 (wéi/zhuī). The contractions are not generally graphically evident, and there is no 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, is sometimes disputed.

As vernacular Chinese dialects use sets of function words that differ considerably fromClassical Chinese, almost all of the classical contractions that are listed below are now archaic and have disappeared from everyday use. However, modern contractions have evolved from the new vernacular function words. Modern contractions appear in all major modern dialect groups. For example, 别 (bié) 'don't' inStandard Mandarin is a contraction of 不要 (bùyào), and 覅 (fiào) 'don't' inShanghainese is a contraction of 勿要 (wù yào), as is apparent graphically. Similarly, inNortheastern Mandarin 甭 (béng) 'needn't' is a phonological and graphical contraction of 不用 (bùyòng). Finally,Cantonese contracts 乜嘢 (mat1 ye5)^[5] 'what?' to 咩 (me1).

Table of Classical Chinese contractions

Note: The particles 爰, 焉, 云, and 然 ending in [-j[a/ə]n] behave as the grammatical equivalents of a verb (or coverb) followed by 之 'him; her; it (third-person object)' or a similar demonstrative pronoun in the object position. In fact, 于/於 '(is) in; at', 曰 'say', and 如 'resemble' are never followed by 之 '(third-person object)' or 此 '(near demonstrative)' in pre-Qin texts. Instead, the respective 'contractions' 爰/焉, 云, and 然 are always used in their place. Nevertheless, no known object pronoun is phonologically appropriate to serve as the hypothetical pronoun that underwent contraction. Hence, many authorities do not consider them to be true contractions. As an alternative explanation for their origin,Edwin G. Pulleyblank proposed that the [-n] ending is derived from aSino-Tibetanaspect marker that later took onanaphoric character.^[6]: 80

Here are some of the contractions inStandard Dutch:

InformalBelgian Dutch uses a wide range of non-standard contractions such as "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 has a variety of contractions like in English except that they are mandatory, as inC'est la vie ("That's life") in whichc'est stands force +est ("that is"). The formation of such contractions is calledelision.

In general, anymonosyllabic word ending ine caduc (schwa) contracts if the following word begins with a vowel,h ory (ash is silent and absorbed by the sound of the succeeding vowel;y sounds likei). In addition toce →c'- (demonstrative pronoun "that"), these words areque →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 orla →l'- ("the"; or "he", "she", "it" before a verb or after an imperative verb and before the wordy oren), andde →d'- ("of"). Unlike with English contractions, however, those contractions are mandatory: one would never say (or write)*ce est or*que elle.

Moi ("me") andtoi (informal "you") mandatorily contract tom'- andt'-, respectively, after an imperative verb and before the wordy oren.

It is also mandatory to avoid the repetition of a sound when the conjunctionsi ("if") is followed byil ("he", "it") orils ("they"), which begin with the same vowel soundi:*si il →s'il ("if it", if he");*si ils →s'ils ("if they").

Certainprepositions are also mandatorily merged with masculine and plural direct articles:au forà le,aux forà les,du forde le, anddes forde les. However, the contraction ofcela (demonstrative pronoun "that") toça is optional and informal.

In informal speech, a personalpronoun may sometimes be contracted onto a followingverb. For example,je ne sais pas (IPA:[ʒənəsɛpa], "I don't know") may be pronounced roughlychais pas (IPA:[ʃɛpa]), with thene being completely elided and the[ʒ] ofje being mixed with the[s] ofsais.^{[original research?]} It is also common in informal contexts to contracttu tot'- before a vowel:t'as mangé fortu as mangé.

InModern 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/).

InItalian, prepositions merge with direct articles in predictable ways. The prepositionsa,da,di,in,su,con andper combine with the various forms of the definitearticle, namelyil,lo,la,l',i,gli,gl', andle.

• Contractions witha,da,di,in, andsu are mandatory, but those withcon andper are optional.
• Words inparentheses are no longer very commonly used. However, there's a difference betweenpel andpei, which are old-fashioned, and the other contractions ofper, which are frankly obsolete.Col andcoi are still common;collo,colla,cogli andcolle are nowadays rare in the written language, but common in speaking.
• Formerly,gl' was often used before words beginning withi, however it is no longer in very common (written) use.

The wordsci andè (form ofessere, to be) and the wordsvi andè are contracted intoc'è andv'è (both meaning "there is").

• "C'è /V'è un problema" – There is a problem

The wordsdove andcome are contracted with any word that begins withe, 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".^[9]

Spanish has two mandatory phonetic contractions between prepositions and articles:al (to the) fora el, anddel (of the) forde el (not to be confused witha él, meaningto him, andde él, meaninghis or, more literally,of him).

Other contractions were common in writing until the 17thcentury, the most usual beingde + personal and demonstrative pronouns:destas forde estas (of these, fem.),daquel forde aquel (of that, masc.),dél forde él (of him) etc.; and the feminine article before words beginning witha-:l'alma forla alma, nowel alma (the soul).Several sets of demonstrative pronouns originated as contractions ofaquí (here) + pronoun, or pronoun +otro/a (other):aqueste,aqueso,estotro etc. The modernaquel (that, masc.) is the only survivor of the first pattern; the personal pronounsnosotros (we) andvosotros (pl. you) are remnants of the second. Inmedieval texts, unstressed words very often appear contracted:todol fortodo el (all the, masc.),ques forque 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 asconmigo 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' forpara, deriving aspa'l forpara el, but these forms are only considered appropriate in informal speech.

InPortuguese, contractions are common and much more numerous than those in Spanish. Several prepositions regularly contract with certain articles and pronouns. For instance,de (of) andpor (by; formerlyper) combine with the definite articleso anda (masculine and feminine forms of "the" respectively), producingdo,da (of the),pelo,pela (by the). The prepositionde contracts with the pronounsele andela (he, she), producingdele,dela (his, her). In addition, some verb forms contract with enclitic object pronouns: e.g., the verbamar (to love) combines with the pronouna (her), givingamá-la (to love her).

Another contraction in Portuguese that is similar to English ones is the combination of the pronounda with words starting ina, resulting in changing the first lettera for an apostrophe and joining both words. Examples:Estrela d'alva (A popular phrase to refer toVenus that means "Alb star", as a reference to its brightness);Caixa d'água (water tank).

In informal, spokenGermanprepositional phrases, one can often merge the preposition and thearticle; for example,von dem becomesvom,zu dem becomeszum, oran das becomesans. Some of these are so common that they are mandatory. In informal speech,aufm forauf dem,unterm forunter 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 pronounes often contracts to's (usually written with the apostrophe) in certain contexts. For example, the greetingWie geht es? is usually encountered in the contracted formWie geht's?.

Regional dialects of German, and various local languages that usually were already used long before today'sStandard 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 asin den becomingin'n (sometimesim) orhaben wir becominghamwer,hammor,hemmer, orhamma depending on local intonation preferences.Bavarian German features several more contractions such asgesund sind wir becomingxund samma, which are schematically applied to all word or combinations of similar sound. (One must remember, however, that Germanwir exists alongside Bavarianmir, ormia, with the same meaning.) The Munich-born footballerFranz Beckenbauer has as his catchphrase "Schau mer mal" ("Schauen wir einmal" - in English "We shall see."). 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 asSamma, Meesta, kamma hier ma rin?

SeveralWest Central German dialects along theRhine 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 becomeKressenit, orLass mich gehen, habe ich gesagt may becomeLomejon haschjesaat.

Mostly, there are no bindingorthographies 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.

In standard Indonesian, there are no contractions applied, although Indonesian contractions exist inIndonesian slang. Many of these contractions areterima kasih tomakasih ("thank you"),kenapa tonapa ("why"),nggak togak ("not"),sebentar totar ("a moment"), andsudah todah ("done").

The use of contractions is not allowed in any form of standardNorwegian 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" for "jeg har ikke", meaning "I do not have" and "dække" for "det er ikke", meaning "there is not". The most frequently used of these contractions—usually consisting of two or three words contracted into one word, contain short, common and oftenmonosyllabic words likejeg,du,deg,det,har orikke. The use of the apostrophe (') is much less common than in English, but is sometimes used in contractions to show where letters have been dropped.

In extreme cases, long, entire sentences may be written as one word. An example of this is "Det ordner seg av seg selv" in standard writtenBokmål, meaning "It will sort itself out" could become "dånesæsæsjæl" (note the lettersÅ andÆ, and the word "sjæl", as aneye dialect spelling ofselv).R-dropping, being present in the example, is especially common in speech in many areas of Norway^[which?], but plays out in different ways, as does elision of word-final phonemes like/ə/.

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 spelling. 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 officialorthography. Reasons for this include words spelled unphonemically, ignorance of conventional spelling rules, or adaptation for better transcription of that dialect's phonemes.

Latin contains several examples of contractions. One such case is preserved in the verbnolo (I am unwilling/do not want), which was formed by a contraction ofnon volo (volo meaning "I want"). Similarly this is observed in the first person plural and third person plural forms (nolumus and nolunt respectively).

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:

* this abbreviation is never used in the polite conjugation, to avoid the resultant ambiguity between an abbreviatedikimasu (go) and the verbkimasu (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 that 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).
• Thefirst-person singular pronoun 私 is pronounced わたくし (watakushi) in very formal speech, but commonly contracted to わたし(watashi) in less formal speech, and further clipped in specifically younger women's speech to あたし (atashi).

Variousdialects of Japanese also use their own specific contractions that are often unintelligible to speakers of other dialects.

InPolish, pronouns have contracted forms that are more prevalent in their colloquial usage. Examples arego andmu. The non-contracted forms arejego (unless it is used as a possessive pronoun) andjemu, respectively. Theclitic-ń, which stands forniego (him), as indlań (dla niego), is more common in literature. The non-contracted forms are generally used as a means to accentuate.^[10]

Uyghur, aTurkic language spoken inCentral Asia, includes some verbal suffixes that are actually contracted forms ofcompound verbs (serial verbs). For instance,sëtip alidu (sell-manage, "manage to sell") is usually written and pronouncedsëtivaldu, with the two words forming a contraction and the [p]leniting into a [v] or [w].^{[original research?]}

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, V represents any vowel.

InAlbanian there are two main contractions, ç' and s' used for verbs that are short for çfarë (what) and nuk (did/will not).

• Apostrophe
• Blend
• Clipping (morphology)
• Elision
• List of common English usage misconceptions
• Poetic contraction
• Synalepha
• Syncope (phonetics)