Papiamento Orthography - Contractions

Contractions

In both dialects, phonological elision often takes place in colloquial speech and writing and orthographic rules take these contractions into account. The orthographic rules of Papiamentu in particular discourage the use of contractions, recommending that words be spelt out in full as much as possible. The most common contractions involve the words ta (to be), pa (to, for), di (of), no (no, not) and e (him/her/it, the).

• ta > t’
  • Ta is only contracted when followed by a word with a vowel, e.g. e ta aki > e t’aki (he/she/it is here).
  • T’ is always affixed to the word following it.
• pa > p’
  • Pa is contracted in the same way as ta, e.g. ta pa esei / esey mi ta bai > ta p'esei / p'esey mi ta bai (that's why I am going)
• di > ’i
  • Di may be contracted whether preceded by a vowel or consonant, e.g. saku / saco di lamunchi > sak’i / sac’i lamunchi (sack of limes), kas / cas di Juan > ka’i / ca’i Juan (John's house).
  • ’i is only affixed to the word preceding it if a phoneme is dropped from the preceding word as well, e.g. peña di Sandra > peñ’i Sandra (Sandra's comb), but brel di solo > brel ’i solo (sunglasses).
  • In some cases, words ending in an unstressed -er like boter/bòter (bottle) may be contracted without the use of an apostrophe, e.g. boter / bòter di awa > botr’i / bòtr’i awa (bottle of water) and not bot’r’i / bòt’r’i awa.
• no > n’
  • No is only contracted when followed by a word with a consonant, e.g. nan no sa > nan n’ sa (they don't know).
  • N’ is never affixed to other words.
• e > ’e / ’é
  • E is only contracted when preceded by a word with a vowel, e.g. Anna lo manda e > Anna lo mand’e / mand’é (Anna will send it).
  • Like ’i, ’e / ’é is only affixed to the word preceding it if a phoneme is dropped from the preceding word as well.
  • Because e is stressed and changes the stress of the word to which it is affixed, it is always accented in Papiamentu when contracted, e.g. nos a traha e > nos a trah’é (we made it).

Note: the pronunciation of Papiamento words with a ⟨c⟩ does not change when such words are contracted with di or e, i.e. the ⟨c⟩ in sac’i lamunchi, though followed by an ⟨i⟩, retains its /k/ sound.