Crasis

Sound change and alternation
Metathesis Quantitative metathesis
Lenition Consonant gradation Consonant voicing and devoicing Assibilation L-vocalization Debuccalization
Fortition
Epenthesis Anaptyxis Excrescence Prosthesis Paragoge Unpacking Vowel breaking
Elision Apheresis Syncope Apocope Haplology Fusion Cluster reduction
Cheshirization Compensatory lengthening Nasalization Tonogenesis Floating tone
Assimilation Coalescence Coarticulation Palatalization Velarization Labialization Final devoicing Metaphony (vowel harmony, umlaut) Consonant harmony
Dissimilation
Sandhi Liaison, linking R Consonant mutation Tone sandhi Hiatus Synalepha  Elision Crasis Synaeresis and diaeresis Synizesis
Other types Rhotacism Rhinoglottophilia Sulcalization

Crasis is a type of contraction in which two vowels or diphthongs merge into one new vowel or diphthong — making one word out of two. Crasis occurs in Portuguese and Arabic as well as in Ancient Greek, where it was first described.

In some cases, as in the French examples below, crasis involves the grammaticalization of two individual lexical items into one, but in other cases, as in the Greek examples, crasis is the orthographic representation of the encliticization and vowel reduction of one grammatical form with another. The difference between the two is that the Greek examples involve two grammatical words and a single phonological word and the French examples involve a single phonological word and grammatical word.

Greek

In both Ancient Greek and Modern Greek, crasis merges a small word and long word that are closely connected in meaning.

A coronis (κορωνίς korōnís "curved"; plural κορωνίδες korōnídes) marks the vowel from crasis. In ancient times this was an apostrophe placed after the vowel (i.e., τα᾿μά), but today it is written over the vowel and is identical to the smooth breathing (τἀμά). Unlike a coronis, a smooth breathing never occurs on a vowel in the middle of a word (although it occurs on doubled rho: διάῤῥοια diarrhoea).

The article undergoes crasis with various nouns and adjectives starting in a vowel:

• τὰ ἐμά → τἀμά "my (affairs)"
• τὸ ἐναντίον → τοὐναντίον "on the contrary"
• τὸ αὐτό → ταὐτό "the same"
• τὰ αὐτά → ταὐτά (plural)

καί undergoes crasis with forms of the first-person singular pronoun, producing a long ᾱ (here not written, since it occurs with a coronis):

• καὶ ἐγώ → κἀγώ "and I", "I too"
• καὶ ἐμοί → κἀμοί "and to me"

In modern monotonic orthography, the coronis is not written.

Greek contraction

Crasis in English usually refers to merging of words, but in Greek it was more general, and referred to most changes called "contraction" in Greek grammar. (But a contraction in which vowels do not change is synaeresis.)

In Greek contraction, two vowels merge to form a long version of one of the two vowels (e + a → ā), a diphthong with a different main vowel (a + ei → āi), or a new vowel intermediate between the originals (a + o → ō).

In general, the accent after contraction copies the accent before contraction. Often this means circumflex accent. But for nouns, accent follows the nominative singular. Sometimes this means a different accent from the uncontracted form — i.e., whenever the ending has a long vowel.

Contraction in Greek occurs throughout the present and imperfect of contracted verbs and in the future of other verbs. There are three categories based on the vowel of contraction: a, e, or o.

a-contract: "honor" τιμάω → τιμῶ τιμάεις → τιμᾷς τιμάει → τιμᾷ τιμάομεν → τιμῶμεν τιμάετε → τιμᾶτε τιμάουσι → τιμῶσι

e-contract: "love" φιλέω → φιλῶ φιλέεις → φιλεῖς φιλέει → φιλεῖ φιλέομεν → φιλοῦμεν φιλέετε → φιλεῖτε φιλέουσι → φιλοῦσι

o-contract: "think right" ἀξιόω → ἀξιῶ ἀξιόεις → αξιοῖς ἀξιόει → ἀξιοῖ ἀξιόομεν → ἀξιοῦμεν ἀξιόετε → ἀξιοῦτε ἀξιόουσι → ἀξιοῦσι

Contraction also occurs in nouns, including the contracted second declension.

"bone"
singular ὀστέον → ὀστοῦν ὀστέου → ὀστοῦ ὀστέῳ → ὀστῷ	plural ὀστέα → ὀστᾶ ὀστέων → ὀστῶν ὀστέοις → ὀστοῖς

S-stem nouns undergo contraction with vowel endings.

-es stem	-os stem
γένος   no contraction γένεος → γένους γένεϊ → γένει (synaeresis) γένεα → γένη γενέων → γενῶν γένεσσι   no contraction	αἰδώς   no contraction αἰδόος → αἰδοῦς αἰδόϊ → αἰδοῖ αἰδόα → αἰδῶ

Some compound nouns show contraction:

• λειτο-εργίᾱ → λειτουργίᾱ "liturgy"

French

In French, the contractions of determiners are often the results of a vocalisation and a crasis.

For example :

• de le → du
• de les → des
• à le → au
• en les → ès

Portuguese

In Portuguese, the most frequent crasis is the contraction of the preposition a ("to" or "at") with the feminine singular definite article a ("the"), indicated in writing with a grave accent. For example, instead of *Vou a a praia ("I go to the beach"), one says Vou à praia ("I go to-the beach"). This contraction turns the clitic a into the stressed word à.

Crasis also occurs between the preposition a and demonstratives: for instance, when this preposition precedes aquele(s), aquela(s) (meaning "that", "those", in different genders), they contract to àquele(s), àquela(s). In this case, the accent marks a secondary stress.

In addition, the vowel à is pronounced lower than the vowel a in these examples in standard European Portuguese, though this qualitative distinction is generally not made in Brazilian Portuguese.

The crasis is very important and can completely change the meaning of a sentence, for example:

• Exposta a polícia - The police is exposed
• Exposta à polícia - She is exposed to the police

• Glória a rainha - Glória the queen
• Glória à rainha - Glory to the queen

• Dê a mulher - Give the woman
• Dê à mulher - Give to the woman

See also

• Assimilation (linguistics)
• Contraction (grammar)
• Elision
• Liaison (French)
• Sandhi
• Synaeresis

External links

• Greek Grammar