Why are the elided forms of "de" and "el/la" (d' and l') present in French, Catalan and Italian, but absent from Spanish and Portuguese?
Spanish had them, in old Spanish, but Spanish then simplified spelling and eliminated elided pronouns.
For example…
It says “Obras de Don Luis de Góngora, reconocidas i comunicadas por Don Antonio Chacón Ponce de León, señor de Polvoranca”
Notice above as a start how y (and) was written i, the ortogarphy has changed as you can see.
But now, look at the abbreviations that follow, this the classical Baroque poet Luis de Góngora dedicating one of his works to his friend the Count Duke of Olivares, this is how Golden Age Spanish looked like:
“Al excelentísimo señor Don Gaspar de Guzmán, Conde de Olivares i Duque de Sanlúcar la Maior, Marqués de Heliche, delos Consejos d'Estado i Guerra de su Majestad i su Cavallerizo maior; Comendador maior de Alcántara; Canciller maior delas Indias; Capitán General dela Cavallería d'España i Perpetuo de Sevilla i su tierra; Perpetuo de los Reales Alcázares de aquella ciudad i de sus Atarazanas; Alguacil maior dela Casa de Contratación delas Indias i Correo maior dellas.”
As you can see there WERE elided pronouns in Spanish and they were pretty similar to the Italian ones. But then later ortography reforms changed this.
As for Portuguese I think some elided pronouns also existed in older Portuguese. But articles can't be made into those like in Spanish, French, Italian etc because in Portuguese articles are vowel sounds while in other romances they keep the consonant L sound from Latin… so in Spanish you could shorten them to the L like in French but in Portuguese there is no consonant to do that.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PORTUGUESE
Elided forms with an apostrophe are not completely absent in Portuguese. They’re just rare because they’re mostly perceived as unnecessary devices, since if there is a spoken liaison between the consonant of one word and the initial vowel of another, causing some vowel or semivowel to drop, there is no reason why it should be represented graphically, especially because not all Portuguese speakers, in all the different accents/dialects, will speak like that in that same position, too.
Sometimes those elision rules are also much more productive in fast speech, but not in slow, careful enunciation of texts, in which the syllables are more clearly pronounced.
For instance in casual conversations spoken at a reasonably fast pace, people in my home state (Ceará, Brazil) will pronounce Como é que a consulta é feita agora? (literally “How is it that the appointment is done now?”) roughly as if it were written ‘M’ é que a consult’ é feit’ agora [mɛ.kja.kõ.su.tɛ.fej.ta.gɔ.ɾɐ] . But if one is speaking very slowly, in a more formal way, every syllable will sound much more clear, similar to Como é que a consulta é feita agora? as it is written.
Since written language should be easily recognized by everyone who speaks the language, avoiding elided forms is recommendable and useful. So, Portuguese ortography just decided to get rid of them in most situations, because what they represent is mainly a phonetic phenomenon, it’s not relevant to conveying an efficient communication in the written language.
For starters, Portuguese has no use for l’ because the Portuguese are the vowels o (pronounced /u/ and often turned into a semivowel /w/ just before another vowel) and a, not articles beginning with l as in French, Catalan and Italian. So, a whole lot of elided forms are already made nonexistant in Portuguese. The only remnant of l in Portuguese is to be found in the contracted forms pelo/pela (“by the, through the”), which come from archaic Galician-Portuguese per + lo/la.
Aside from that, Portuguese just chose to attach some elided prepositions with the following articles or pronouns. It could’ve chosen to use an apostrophe for that, and in some old texts you can see that, indeed, but the forms that prevailed in the written language and became standardised are simply fully juxtaposed, therefore:
de + o = do; de + a = da (not “d’a”)
em + o = no; em + a + na
de + este/esse/ = deste/desse; de + esta/essa = desta/dessa
de + isto/isso = disto/disso
de/em + aquele = daquele, naquele; de/em + aquela = daquela, naquela
de/em + ele = dele, nele; de/em + ela = dela, nela
A few elided forms with apostrophes are still very much used in writing, though. Those are:
For some uncanny reason, expressions using the word água are still very often written in elided form together with the prepositions de em em: n’água, d’água. E.g.: queda d’água (waterfall); deu com os burros n’água (popular saying that means basically “to fail after putting much effort and hope in it” or “to make something without any positive result”).
When one uses pronouns to refer to God after a preposition. Since those pronouns as a rule must be written in capital letters, there are two alternative ways to represent that in written form: d’Ele, n’Ele or Dele, Nele, putting the implied preposition in capital letters.
Occasionally you will also see elided forms with an apostrophe being used to express colloquial usages when the author aims to make it clear that the sociolect used by the characters in the text is very popular, even folksy. An example is d’eu/n’eu, literally “of I, in I”, instead of the standard de mim/em mim(“of me, in me”), or c’os or c’as instead of the standard com os/com as.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Lucas Villar says, these existed in Old Spanish (and at least “del” still does exist).
What you will find is that the Western Romance languages were all essentially one language for a long time and went down a common path in terms of drifting pronunciations, eliding sounds in the language, etc. But by the High Middle Ages they were each going their own way. During the late Middle Ages and Early Modern period, the Spanish embarked on a number of language reforms driven both by the influence of Arabic and by the Renaissance notion of connecting with Latin heritage. Many elisions of various kinds were eliminated in the language to make it more similar to Latin and to make it more consistent.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because! What happens in Catalan, Italian, Portuguese, French, Spanish (one can include Aragonese, Asturian, Gascon, Occitan… as well) is not something the neighbouring languages have to do necessarily.
For example, Modern Standard Spanish does not use apostrophes (in comic books, one may read P’a mí [< Para mí, For me], M’han dicho [< Me han dicho, (They) Have told me]… since many speakers pronounce that way in rapid speech, in (very) informal contexts), but apostrophes are always required when writing in French, Catalan, and Italian (Je t’aime, l’apòstrof, l’Italia…).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spanish grammar was simplified in 1492 (what a date, isn’t it?) and these forms were removed…making Spanish grammar perhaps the easiest and most logical among ALL Romance languages. Alfonso el Sabio started the process of codifying Spanish many years beforehand, but it was Nebrija who set it in stone. Here he is: Antonio de Nebrija - Wikipedia
1492 was a very busy year for Spain: discovered the Americas, thew out the Jews, and codified their language once and for all…something else important happened that year as well, but I can’t remember what it was.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From those forms, at least two remain: “de+el” becomes “del” as long as the article “el” is not part of the name of the noun. A similar case is in “a+el” that becomes “al”.
I speak Italian and in my opinion the elided forms make much more sense in Italian, because they make the spoken language more dynamic and create a better phonology. Compare the sound of Questa é la casa del direttore with the hypothetical sound (because elision is mandatory) of Questa é la casa di il direttore.
In Portuguese I think there are many more cases than in Spanish do, na, no , pra (please correct me because I do not speak Portuguese).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the elided form of “de” exists in Portuguese, we can write “de água” or “d’água”, although I think most of times the elided form is used in literary language
as for the definite articles o/a/os/as there are no elided forms, I think it doesn’t make sense in Portuguese
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They're not entirely. In Spanish, “de” and “el” combine to make “del”. And in Portuguese, there is “do/da”.
0 notes
Hellcheer headcanon:
Warning: sexual themes but no actual sex and Jason is an asshole and no one can convince me otherwise.
Eddie came to the picnic table behind the school hoping he could make some money, he certainly didn't expect Chrissy Cunningham to be here today, especially not like this.
She sat at the table with her back to him but he could tell she was crying, not just quietly shedding a couple of tears but fullblown sobbing into the sleeve of her white sweater jacket.
"Chrissy?"
She flinched and whipped around to look at him.
"Whatever it is you want me to do, I'm not doing it."
She scrambled to get up from the bench and backed away from him.
He put his hands up in surrender.
"Hey, people usually come here if they want something from me...What's wrong?" he asked when he saw the terrified look on her face.
She was still wiping at her tear streaked face.
"Haven't you heard what Jason and his friends say about me?"
"In case you haven't noticed, I don't really engage in gossip with Carver...What are they saying?" He was confused why something her boyfriend said made her so distraught.
"He...he told everyone I've been doing...all these nasty things with pretty much the entire Basketball team and some of them are playing along..and everyone believes them..." she cried, her sobs sounding like she was about to hyperventilate.
He moved closer ,slowly , like he was approaching a frightened animal, and put a gentle hand on her arm.
"Shhh it's okay."
"No it's not!...Two guys stopped me in the hallway earlier and asked if they could "spit roast" me....I don't even know what that means but I'm sure it's something gross!"
"It's when you give a blowjob to one guy while the other-"
Chrissy stared at him with wide eyes, her mouth ajar in shock and embarrassment.
"Oh shit, nevermind...you don't want to know what it is, do you?"
"...No!" She squeaked.
"Sorry...Why is he saying those things about you?
She was fidgeting with a loose thread on her sleeve.
"I broke up with him yesterday...He said he didn't want to waste his time with a...stupid virgin like me anyway..."
"Stupid bastard" she heard him mutter under his breath as he pulled his bandana from his pocket and offered it to her to wipe away her tears.
Chrissy was carefully dabbing under her eyes and below her sweet little button nose.
"Haven't you guys been together since ...like 3rd grade?!"
He overexaggerated in an attempt to be funny.
"Mr Carver is the pastor at our church. Our parents are friends...Jason and I have been dating for two years but he's been getting very pushy lately and I didn't like that." Chrissy awkwardly tried to explain.
"That's good! Don't let any guy talk you into stuff you don't like."
"I promised I'd let him do it on prom night but he didn't want to wait that long."
"...Let him...do it? ...Are we talking about Sex in general here or is the golden boy into some freaky shit?"
"No! Just...normal sex...I guess...I don't know a lot about all that..."
"Hey it's okay, I haven't done all the stuff people claim I did either..."
"Really?! They say you're into...well...'freaky shit'." She repeated what he said and gave him a tiny smile through her tears.
"Yeah about that...They're talking a lot of bullshit...But don't tell anyone, I have a reputation to maintain."
"I won't. I promise..." her smile vanished when she remembered this morning.
"I can't go back there! Everyone's going to be staring at me."
"What do you say we skip school for the rest of the day then, princess?"
Something about him calling her that made her ears perk up, it made her feel excited and tingly.
"I've never skipped school..."
"First time for everything, huh?" He wagged his eyebrows and smirked over this play of words, considering what they'd just talked about.
Eddie led her to his van and just as he was about to start the engine, he spotted Jason and his friends on the other side of the parking lot.
"Princess, do you want to *really* piss him off?" He smirked mischieviously.
"Yes!" She answered with no hesitation what so ever.
"I have an idea...but I gotta warn you, they will think we...uh...know each other carnally..."
"Carnally?...Oh..."
Eddie instantly regretted mentioning it when he saw her hesitate.
"Forget it, it was a stupid idea."
"No,no,no, he'll absolutely hate it, I love your idea!" There was something evily determined in her smile.
"...but...how are we going to make him think that?"
"Roll down your window a bit and climb in the backseat."
Eddie tried his best to be respectful and not stare as her tiny cheer skirt flipped up, revealing the cutest butt ,clad in even tinier green cheer shorts, when Chrissy easily and elegantly climbed in the back.
The cheerleader couldn't help but giggle when Eddie clumsily flopped down on the floor of his van, all wild hair and long limbs.
The rear windows were curtained and Eddie pulled another little curtain shut that seperated the front seats from the backseats.
Chrissy was sitting shyly on one of the pillows he kept there for the rare occassion that Corroded Coffin landed a gig outside of Hawkins and he and the band had to sleep in the van, like sardines in a can.
She probably had a different idea of what this van had witnessed; In the dim light of the afternoon sun streaming in through small gaps in the curtains he could see her blushing deeply.
"Chrissy, we don't have to do this if its too weird..."
"I want to make him pay!...And I was hoping if people thought you and I were...you know...a thing, maybe they wouldn't bother me again..."
The memory of the two guys cornering her earlier made her shudder with disgust.
"It'd be my pleasure to defend your honor, Princess!"
He smirked, hoping he didn't look like the nervous, love sick fool he was.
"Really? You would do that?"
"Sure!" (I would do anything for you) he thought.
"Are you ready for the whole school to think you're banging the freak?" He joked.
She sat up straight, nodding her pretty little head, looking like she was waiting to be taught something really profound.
"So...how are we-"
Chrissy's question was cut short as Eddie knelt down, one hand on the back of the drivers seat, one on the cars ceiling, and started rocking the van back and forth.
"Wait! I don't know what to do!" She gasped as she knelt down beside him.
"Just make it sound like you're having a good time." He laughed.
"How would I know what that sounds like?!" She stared at him scandalized.
"Right.." He slowed down the movement and thought about it for a moment.
"Have you ever watched a movie with a sex scene?" She shyly nodded, her face now beet red.
"Just try to make it sound like that."
Eddie peeked out through the curtain and gleefully noticed Jason and his group of jocks staring at his van.
"Still sure about this?"
"Yes." She whispered.
"Mhhh, Fuck! You feel so good!" He suddenly groaned, loud enough for them to hear and a visible shiver went through Chrissy, she hadn't expected him to sound this way.
"Oh Eddie, just like that!!!"
She tried her best to sound like she was in the throes of passion and Eddie was surprised how well she did it. He was so mesmerized by the crazy glint in her eyes that they almost forgot peeking through the curtain again, just in time to see Jason's head snap in their direction.
"Oh my god he heard us!!"
She giggled and excitedly grabbed his arm.
Spurred on by his shocked expression and those of his friends, who were one by one realizing who they were listening to, she really put on a show and Eddie went along with it.
While they were having fun in the van, (not quite the kind of fun it sounded like) at some point Chrissy clasped her hand over her mouth to muffle her laugh after Eddie let out the most ridiculous moan.
"Let him hear you, laughing during sex is one of the best feelings."
Eddie grinned at her. When he looked out again he noticed Jason seemingly getting more and more aggravated and as much as he enjoyed seeing him like that he really didn't want them to come over and beat his ass so he whispered:
"Are you ready for the big finale?"
"Yes!"
She answered in her high-pitched-fake-sex voice, making them both laugh.
Eddie almost sounded like he was growling and Chrissy squeezed her thighs together tightly to get some relief from the tingling she felt between her legs.
She tried her best to immitate the sounds she normally had to hide by burying her face in her pillows when she was touching herself at night and it ended up feeling so good that her legs were shaking and she almost blacked out.
"Come for me, Princess!"
"Ah, ah, ah...ahhhhh Eddie!!!"
"Shit!...That sounded so real! You okay?"
He chuckled.
"Yeah, you?"
He nodded, grinning like a mad man. They were both flushed and out of breath as if they really just had sex.
He tried to discreetly adjust his pants and he was glad he was wearing black jeans, at least they somewhat hid the outline of his raging boner.
"We gotta look a bit more disheveled...May I?" He motioned to her hair and Chrissy wasn't quite sure what he was about to do but she agreed.
He gently pulled the green scrunchie from her ponytail, slipped it onto his wrist and tousled her hair, she inhaled sharply at the feeling of his nimble fingers playfully dancing across her scalp.
"Sorry, did I hurt you?"
"No...it feels nice."
She answered shyly but truthfully as she leaned into his touch.
He was surprised when she suddenly did the same to him and he realized just how nice it felt.
He wanted to kiss her and for a moment he wondered if she'd kiss him back; but he instantly felt like an ass for even thinking about this when he remembered how freaked out she was by those two guys in the hallway.
"Can I give you hug?"
"Yeah" He chuckled incredulously and added "We just had sex, of course we can cuddle."
She giggled as she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight, Chrissy was flooded with an unfamiliar feeling of warmth and security when Eddie returned the hug and she wanted to never let go of him.
"Come on, lets get out of here before your... ex-boyfriend and his buddies come over here."
Surprisingly she liked the sound of that, ex-boyfriend.
Eddie quickly shrugged off his vest and leather jacket and Chrissy did the same with her cheer jacket. He climbed back into the frontseat first, then(like a real gentleman, not like they just made everyone listening think he rearranged her guts) helped the tiny cheerleader, even though she didn't need any help, get situated in her seat again.
Ironically when he started the engine, 'Fuck like a beast' started playing and he couldn't help but turn up the volume as they drove past Jason and his friends. If looks could kill, they both would've dropped dead. Chrissy stuck her arm out of the window and flipped Jason off with a sweet smile on her rosy lips, Eddie leaned over the middle console, flashed him a shit-eating grin and did the same thing, making sure to show off Chrissy's scrunchie around his wrist; He was so close that she could feel his breath on her skin and the tips of his wild,long hair grazing her shoulder sent a shiver down her spine.
She wanted to kiss him so badly but she figured, since they'd be spending some time together today, she'd get plenty of chances to do so without an audience and without Eddie thinking she just wanted to put on a show for Jason.
17 notes
·
View notes