Apocope . Construction figure that consists of the suppression of letters or syllables at the end of the word, in order to make the words shorter and have more euphony . It is used as a literary resource, in the so-called rhetorical figures. This phenomenon is widely represented in colloquial language, as it is one of the means frequently used in modern languages to express oneself more quickly; it serves to avoid the use of expressions that are too cultured or long: cinema by cinema.
Summary
[ hide ]
- 1 Etymology
- 2 Background
- 3 Gender of apocopated words
- 4 Types of words that can be copied
- 5 Sources
Etymology
The concept apocope comes from the Latin apocŏpe , and this from the Greek ἀποκοπή , from ἀποκόπτειν : cut, hence this phenomenon is also called shortening.
Background
The evolution of Spanish presents a historical peculiarity with regard to the final vowels: phases of conservation, loss and recovery. In studies carried out by Lapesa, the author supports his well-known theses on the influence of the Franks in the consolidation of the apocope and on the intervention of King Alfonso X, an intervention that would have resulted in the disappearance of the apocope. According to the generally accepted chronology of Rafael Lapesa, in a first phase, from the first texts until the end of the 11th century , the full forms would prevail, with final vowels; in the twelfth century and in the first half of the thirteenth the loss of the vowel would be fulfilledfinal; at least, numerous cases of alternation between loss and preservation of vowel ending are revealed at this time; the evolution ends with the restoration of vowels that is manifested from the works written in the court of Alfonso the Wise.
In Latin the apocope was a very frequent phenomenon. The vowels as well as the consonants and syllables suffered from it . For example, the vowel e was lost: capital (e), penetral (e); Latin words lost syllables: exin (de), dein (de), proin (de), among others. In modern Spanish, as in Latin, almost all lexical categories suffer apocope, losing vowels, consonants and even one or more syllables.
Gender of apocopated words
Most of the apocopated words maintain the genre: the photo for the photography, the cinema for the cinematographer; but this is not always the case, such is the case of chromium by chromolithography.
Types of words that can be copied
They apocopan in Spanish :
- Nouns: It is very common that in an affectionate and colloquial way the apocope is used to call people or animals, shortening their names: Manu, instead of Manuel; Cary to name Caridad; Ale, in the case of Alejandro or Alejandra, among others.
Among the apócopes of common nouns of frequent use are: television by television, car by car, bike by bicycle, cinema by cinematograph, teacher by teacher, supermarket by supermarket, motorcycle by motorcycle, taxi by meter, etc.
Apocopados nouns usually follow the general rules of plural formation: photos, buses; but some of them, like super and hyper, remain unchanged: the hyper, the super.
- Adjectives: The rule in the case of adjectives is that they lose the vowel or the final syllable when they are placed before the noun. Examples: This is a good boy; Juan’s great merit was overcoming his drama. The adjectives good, bad and holy do not diminish if they precede nouns of feminine gender: good woman, bad person, Saint Teresa, but they do in the cases that precede nouns of masculine gender.
- Pronouns: In the lexical category of the pronoun there are apocopes in the indefinite pronouns: some, that is apocopated in some; none, from which no comes; one that has the form a; anyone who falls into any.
Possessive pronouns get shorter when they are prepended to nouns: mi, tu, su; my, your, their. Example: Your brother.
In the case of numeral pronouns, the first and third ordinals are apocopated when they precede a masculine noun: the first semester; the third year. The cardinal numeral hundred is reduced to one hundred.
- Verbs: The apocope of verbs happens in their imperative forms. It is precisely the form of the affirmative imperative of the second person singular of the verb put, which is reduced to pon; the same as the imperative of the second person singular of the verb have whose form is ten and the imperative of the verb come that has the apocopated form come. The imperative of the second person singular of the verb to do is apocopado in beam, and the verb to go out forms the apocope sal.
- Adverbs: In the case of adverbs, they slow down when they are placed in front of an adjective or another adverb: so early (from so much), how cute (from how much), very well educated (from a lot). In other cases, the ending mind is usually removed as in just recently.
