lélision

L'élision is a phonological process in French by which the final vowel of a word is dropped when the following word begins with a vowel or with a mute h. The elided vowel is usually represented in writing by an apostrophe, producing forms such as l'homme, l'amour, c'est, and j'aime. The use of l'élision helps to avoid hiatus and to produce smoother, more connected speech.

The phenomenon mainly affects determiners, pronouns, prepositions, and some conjunctions that end in a vowel and are followed by a word beginning with a vowel or a mute h. Common examples include le/la/les before a vowel (l'homme, l'amie), je before a verb starting with a vowel (j'aime), de before a vowel (d'accord), que before a vowel (qu'il), and ne before a vowel (il n'y a). It also appears in contracted forms like c'était (ce était). In speech, elision is widespread across registers and tends to be more pronounced in fast or careful speech alike.

Not all words permit elision. If the following word starts with an aspirated h, elision does not occur; for example, le héros is written without an apostrophe before héros. The term elision itself comes from Latin mellus elisio, and in linguistics it is distinguished from other processes such as contraction and liaison.