Spanish
The most notable example is Chilean Spanish.
Forms of the verb estar ("to be") are often shortened by dropping the first syllable (as if the verb were *tar).
- Acá está. → Acá ta. ("Here it is", joking tone or baby-talk)
The preposition para ("for", "in order to") can be shortened to pa' (this sounds uneducated in most dialects):
- Pa' servirle. (lit. "To serve you", i. e. "At your service".)
- No es pa' cualquiera. ("It is not for anyone.")
The d in the final -ado of past participles is usually pronounced softly, and, in relaxed pronunciation, can disappear: Estoy cansado ("I am tired") is heard as Toy cansao. Doing so with the final -ido, as in *Toy perdío ("I am lost"), is perceived as more uneducated. This can lead to hypercorrections like *bacalado instead of bacalao ("cod").
The preposition de ("of") also tends to get shortened to e when the previous word ends in a vowel.
In many dialects, the very common phrase voy a + infinitive ("I'm going to..."), which shows the immediate future tense, is shortened: some people pronounce vua /bwa/, others via /bja/. This is quite common but also considered uneducated.
Some dialects like Andalusian Spanish lose the syllable-final s. Since it is important as a mark of plurals, it is substituted with vowel opening.
The contractions:
- para + el = pal
- para + la = pala
- para + los = palos
- para + las = palas
- para + donde = paonde, pande
- para + allá = payá
- para + acá = pacá
Or the common pa'que from para que.
Read more about this topic: Relaxed Pronunciation
Famous quotes containing the word spanish:
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—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)