Shortening or Apocopation of Spanish Words

In Spanish, there are just over a dozen  words that are shortened in certain sentence formations through what is known in linguistics as  apocope or apocopation. Apocopation is the  loss  of one or more sounds from the end of a word. The Rule With Singular Masculine Nouns The most common of these by far is uno, the number one, which is usually translated as a or an. It is shortened to un when it comes before a singular masculine noun: un muchacho,  a boy, but, it does retain the final vowel sound when in the feminine form,  una muchacha,  a girl. Here are other adjectives that are shortened when they precede a singular masculine noun. All but the last one, postrero, are very common. Word/Meaning Example Translation alguno "some" algà ºn lugar some place bueno "good" el buen samaritano the good Samaritan malo "bad" este mal hombre this bad man ninguno "no," "not one" ningà ºn perro no dog uno "one" un muchacho a boy primero "first" primer encuentro first encounter tercero "third" Tercer Mundo Third World postrero "last" mi postrer adià ³s my last goodbye For all the adjectives listed above, the usual form is retained when the words are followed by a feminine or plural noun. Examples include  algunos libros, which means  some books, and  tercera mujer, which means third woman. Five Other Common Words That Get Shortened There are five other common words that undergo apocopation: grande, meaning great; cualquiera,  meaning whatever; ciento, meaning one hundred santo, meaning Saint; and tanto, meaning so much. Grande The singular grande is shortened to gran before a noun in both the masculine and feminine. In that position, it usually means great. For an example look at  un gran momento, which means,  a great moment and  la gran explosià ³n, which means,  the great explosion. There is a case when  grande is not apocopated, and that is when it follows  mà ¡s. Examples include  el mà ¡s grande escape, meaning  the greatest escape, or  el mà ¡s grande americano, the greatest American. Cualquiera When used as an adjective, cualquiera, meaning  any in the sense of whatever, drops the -a before a noun whether masculine or feminine. Take at look at the following examples,  cualquier navegador, meaning  any browser, or  cualquier nivel, meaning  whatever level. Ciento The word for one hundred is shortened before a noun or when used as part of a number that it multiplies, for example,  cien dà ³lares, which means, 100 dollars, and  cien millones, which means,  100 million. The exception is that ciento  is not shortened within a number, for example, the number 112, would be spelled out and pronounced as  ciento doce. Santo The title for a saint is shortened before the names of most males, such as San Diego or San Francisco. To avoid awkward pronunciations, the long form Santo is retained if the following name begins with Do- or To-, such as in Santo Domingo or Santo Tomà ¡s. Tanto The adjective tanto, meaning, so much, gets shortened to tan when it is used as an adverb. When it becomes an adverb, its translation becomes so. For example, Tengo tanto dinero que no sà © quà © hacer con à ©l, which translates to, I have so much money I dont know what to do with it. An example of tanto being shortened and used as an adverb can be found in the following sentences, Rita es tan alta como Marà ­a, meaning Rita is as tall as Marà ­a, or Rita habla tan rà ¡pido como Marà ­a, meaning, Rita talks as fast as Marà ­a. Contrasting Apocopation in English and Spanish Although apocopes exist in Spanish and English, the terms is applied differently in the two languages. Apocopation in English is also called end-cut or final clipping, usually referring to the shortening of the end of a word while the word retains its meaning. Examples of apocopes include auto clipped from automobile and gym shortened from gymnasium. The same thing is sometimes done in Spanish—for example, one word for a bicycle, bici, is a shortened form of bicicleta. But such clipping isnt as common in Spanish and isnt typically given any particular grammatical name. Evidence of apocopation be seen in old spellings of words such as olde for olde, which used to be pronounced with a final vowel sounds. In modern spoken English, apocopation can be seen in words that end ing -ing, where the final sound is often shorted to -in without affecting the spelling. Key Takeaways Through a process known as apocopation, Spanish has 13 words (12 of them common) that are shortened before certain other words. The shortened word is known as an apocope.The most common apocopation is that of uno (one, a, or an), which it comes before a singular masculine noun.The term apocopation is used differently in English and Spanish grammar.