Editing Elision (section)

==Contractions==
In many languages there is a process similar but not identical to elision, called [[Contraction (grammar)|'''contraction''']], where common words that occur frequently together form a shortened pronunciation.<ref>{{cite web |title=Elision |url=https://literarydevices.net/elision/ |website=Literary Devices |date=7 February 2014 |access-date=13 February 2021}}</ref> This may be a historical case (for example, French "''ce est''" has become "''c'est''" /sɛ/ and it would now be incorrect to say "''ce est''" /sə ɛ/) or one that is still optional (in English, a speaker may say "that is" /ðæt ɪz/ or "that's" /ðæts/). Contractions of both sorts are natural forms of the language used by native speakers and are often [[colloquial]] but not considered substandard.<ref name="Knowles">{{cite book |last1=Knowles |first1=Gerry |title=Patterns of Spoken English |date=1987 |publisher=Longman |isbn=0-582-29132-1 |pages=145–7}}</ref> English contractions are usually vowel-less [[Stress and vowel reduction in English#Weak and strong forms of words|weak form words]].<ref name="Knowles"/> In some cases the contracted form is not a simple matter of elision: for example, "that's" as a contraction is made not only by the elision of the /ɪ/ of "is" but also by the change of final consonant from /z/ to /s/;  "won't" for "will not" requires not only the elision of the /ɒ/ of "not" but also the vowel change /ɪ/ → /oʊ/ and in English [[Received Pronunciation|RP]] "can't" and "shan't" change vowel from /æ/ of "can" and "shall" to /ɑː/ in /kɑːnt/, /ʃɑːnt/. In some languages employing the [[Latin alphabet]], such as English, the omitted letters in a contraction are replaced by an [[apostrophe]] (e.g., ''isn't'' for ''is not''). Written Greek marks elisions in the same way.