elisions

Elision is the omission of a sound or syllable in speech. In linguistics, it refers to a phonological process in which a segment is deleted during pronunciation, often to ease articulation or to accommodate surrounding sounds. Elision can occur within a word or at word boundaries, and it is commonly marked in writing or transcription when a sound is omitted. In many languages, elision at word boundaries is standard in casual speech and varies by dialect.

Common types include vowel elision, consonant elision, and syllable elision. Vowel elision involves dropping a vowel, a frequent occurrence in rapid or informal speech, such as pronouncing going to as goin' to. Consonant elision removes a consonant, often used to simplify a cluster (for example, last year pronounced as las' year in some dialects). Syllable elision is the omission of one or more syllables, which can occur in fast speech or in names and compound phrases.

Elision also appears in poetry and rhetoric to fit meter or rhythm. Poetic elisions are often written with an apostrophe, as in o'er for over or e'er for ever, and they can reflect historical pronunciation or stylistic effect. In writing, elision is closely related to contractions and to orthographic practices in languages such as French, where the elision of a preceding vowel is indicated by an apostrophe (for example, l'homme from le homme).

In linguistic analysis, elision is distinguished from ellipsis (omission of material in discourse) and from other phonological processes like assimilation. It is often described using phonetic or phonological notation to indicate the deleted segment, or simply by noting the surface pronunciation.