The omission of letters or syllables can be represented with the apostrophe.
The concept of apostrophe comes from the late Latin apostrŏphus , in turn derived from the Greek word apostrophos . It is a spelling sign that, in our language, is used to link two terms, marking the deletion of a sound .
High coma
The apostrophe is a raised comma ( « ), although it can also appear as a closing quotation mark ( ' ). It serves to indicate the elision of a letter, simulate a certain pronunciation associated with a dialect or show the elimination of a phoneme for reasons related to the meter.
Let's see a case of use of the apostrophe. Many times, in the colloquial language of some regions, the word "para" is pronounced "pa" (that is, the last two letters are eliminated). For this reason, it is usually written "pa" in order to make this elimination explicit. For example: "I'm going to my aunt's for lunch," "It's cool, dad," "What do you want me to call Juan, if I don't have anything to tell him?" .
Other words that are often pronounced in everyday speech with certain omissions are participles. At this point we must distinguish two cases: when the letter D (the penultimate of the participle) is omitted; when the last two or three letters are eliminated, that is, its complete ending. In this way we find "I'm tired" and "you're a soul ." Note that in the masculine the letter O is preserved, while in the feminine the A is always removed ("tired", "desalma"o").
Other languages
In other languages , the apostrophe is used to make different contractions . One of the most common uses is "I"m in the English language (for "I am" ). It is possible to express "I'm John" or "I am John . " Note that while English requires the presence of the pronoun "I", in Spanish its use in this case is incorrect, since the conjugation of the verb "ser" is enough to understand what person is being talked about, who executes the action.
The apostrophe can also be used to improve the transliteration of certain languages, that is, the adaptation of foreign words to our alphabet , even when certain sounds are lost in the process. Let's take the case of Hebrew and Arabic, in which there is the concept called glottal stop ; It is a "voiceless" consonant that is pronounced by interrupting the flow of air in the throat. To represent this phenomenon in Spanish, we use the apostrophe.
An example is found in the Arabic term of the Quran itself, which we must write qur»ān , its officially accepted transliteration. We also have Be'er Sheva , the name of the city Beersheba transliterated from Hebrew. The Guarani language, belonging to the Tupi-Guarani family and used by millions of inhabitants of the Southern American Cone, includes the apostrophe in its alphabet for use as a glottal stop consonant .
While the apostrophe is a spelling sign, the apostrophe is a literary figure.
The apostrophe
It is important not to confuse the apostrophe with the apostrophe . The apostrophe, as we already explained, is an orthographic sign. The apostrophe, on the other hand, is an address that is made, in the second person, in a vehement manner, whether to another subject, to an inanimate object, to something abstract or even to oneself. Therefore, the apostrophe is usually considered a rhetorical figure that abruptly interrupts speech to address someone.
This literary figure, which is used in dialogue , can also address a being who has died or who is not present in the same scene. To construct the apostrophe, the imperative or vocative is usually used. It is very common in prayers, invocations and soliloquies. Outside the scope of literature, we can also find it in political speeches, where it generates a positive effect on the receptivity of the public when leaders create the impression of being talking to themselves.