What is "elision"

1580s, from Latin elisionem (nominative elisio) "a striking out, a pressing out," in grammar, "the suppression of a vowel," noun of action from past participle stem of elidere (see elide).

Etymology 2 n. 1 The deliberate omission of something. 2 The omission of a letter or syllable between two words; sometimes marked with an apostrophe.

1. n. omission of a sound between two words (usually a vowel and the end of one word or the beginning of the next)

2. a deliberate act of omission; "with the exception of the children, everyone was told the news" [syn: exception, exclusion]

In linguistics, 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. Sometimes sounds are elided to make a word easier to pronounce. The word elision is frequently used in linguistic description of living languages, and deletion is often used in historical linguistics for a historical sound change.

In English as spoken by native speakers, elision comes naturally, and it is often described as " slurred" or "muted" sounds. Often, elision is deliberate. It is a common misconception that contractions automatically qualify as elided words, which comes from slack definitions: not all elided words are contractions and not all contractions are elided words (for example, 'going to' → 'gonna': an elision that is not a contraction; 'can not' → 'cannot': a contraction that is not an elision).

In French, elision is mandatory in certain contexts, as in the clause (elided from *).

In Spanish, elision occurs less frequently but is common in certain dialects. It is never marked by an apostrophe in writing. Of particular interest is the word para, which becomes pa. Multiple words can be elided together, as in pa trabajar for para trabajar and pa delante or even pa lante for para adelante.

Elision likely occurred regularly in Latin, but was not written, except in inscriptions and comedy. Elision of a vowel before a word starting in a vowel is frequent in poetry, where the meter sometimes requires it. For example, the opening line of Catullus 3 is Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque, but would be read as Lugeto Veneres Cupidinesque.

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.

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

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

Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase. It is sometimes used to refer to the omission of information from a narrative.

Elision may also refer to:

• Elision (music), a concept in the analysis of 18th- and 19th-century Western music
• ELISION Ensemble, a chamber ensemble specialising in contemporary classical music
• Elision (French), refers to the suppression of a final unstressed vowel (usually [ə]) immediately before another word beginning with a vowel
• Copy elision, a compiler optimization technique that eliminates unnecessary copying of objects.