28.22: Part 3: 21 CONTRACTION AND ELISION

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21 CONTRACTION AND ELISION

The following are spelling (orthographic) conventions that reflect variations in pronunciation. They are important.

21.1 Contraction

The prepositions à and de contract with the definite article and with the pronoun LQL as follows:

à + le	= au
à + les	= aux (that's either masculine or feminine)
de + le	= du
de + les	= des (that's either masculine or feminine)
à + lequel	= auquel
à + lesquels	= auxquels (masculine)
à + lesquelles	= auxquelles (feminine)
de + lequel	= duquel
de + lesquels	= desquels (masculine)
de + lesquelles	= desquelles (feminine)

Note: There is no contraction with a direct object pronoun, only with the definite article, and only with the plural definite article or with the masculine singular, followed by a word beginning with a consonant sound.

Il commence à le faire. (le is a direct object pronoun)	He's beginning to do it.
Il va à la bibliothèque. (No contraction with the feminine singular articles)	He's going to the library.
Il y a de l'ail dans ce plat. (No contraction when the article is l')	There's garlic in this dish.
Je viens de les voir. (No contraction with the direct object pronoun, les)	I just saw them.

21.2 Elision

The e and a of le and la (whether as articles or as object pronouns) elide—that is, are dropped and replaced by an apostrophe—when the following word begins with a vowel sound.

le garçon	but	l'ami
la jeune fille	but	l'amie
le hasard	but	l'hôtel

(hasard starts with an "aspirate" h; hôtel does not¹⁷)

The other large set of words that elide a final vowel are all the monosyllables that end in e, including some two-syllable prepositions and conjunctions that contain que. Here is a full list, in which we repeat le and la.

ce (ce as a pronoun, not as a demonstrative adjective, for which the form cet is used in front of vowels)

le, la

que (quoique, presque, lorsque)

Finally, the i of the conjunction si (if), elides with a following i (and only a following i, no other vowel sound).

¹⁷ The "aspirate h" is one that, although silent like all h's in French, acts like a consonant in preventing elision and liaison. There are a few fairly common words that begin with aspirate h: they are listed in this book, and in standard dictionaries, with an asterisk (*hasard, *honte, and so forth).

S'il vient, je lui parlerai.	If he comes, I'll speak to him.
Si elle vient, je lui parlerai.	If she comes, I'll speak to her.