In French, elision is the suppression of a final unstressed vowel (usually ) immediately before another word beginning with a vowel or a muted h. The term also refers to the orthographic convention by which the deletion of a vowel is reflected in writing, and indicated with an apostrophe.

Written French

In written French, elision (both phonetic and orthographic) is obligatory for the following words: *the definite articles and ** ("the boy"), ("the girl") ** + → ("the tree"), + → ("the church") *the subject pronouns and (when they occur before the verb) **. ("I sleep") . ("That would be great.") **. ("I slept.") . ("It was great.") **but: ? ("Did I imagine?"), ? ("Is that useful?") *the object pronouns , , , , and (when they occur before the verb) **. ("Jean shaves himself, sees her, phones me.") **. ("Jean shaved himself, saw her, phoned me.") **but: . ("Look at him one more time.") *the object pronouns when they occur after an imperative verb and before the pronoun or : ** . ("Put it, give me them, scram.") ** . ("Put it there, give me some, leave.") *the negative marker **. ("She isn't talking anymore.") **. ("She won't stop talking.") *the preposition **. ("Jean's father just left.") **. ("Albert's father just arrived.") * (which has many different functions) **. ("What are you saying? That Jean does nothing but eat.") **. ("What did you say? That we only had one more week left.") *The conjunction plus the pronouns and ** ("if she likes cats") ** ("if he/they like cats") Elision is indicated in the spelling of some compound words, such as "peninsula", "today", and "someone". At the beginnings of words, the aspirated h forbids elision. Example: . The mute h, however, requires elision. Example: . Both types of "h" are silent regardless.

Informal French

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

References

* Maurice Grevisse, '' Le Bon Usage'', 14th edition by André Goosse, de Boeck, 2007, {{ISBN, 978-2-8011-1404-9 French language Silent letters fr:Élision

Written French

Informal French

See also

References