Shortening (linguistics)

In language morphology, abbreviation or shortening is the procedure of contracting words by removing parts of it, either at the beginning, middle or end. For example, "bus" as bus. It should not be confused with the acronym, which is shortened by taking the initials (eg "United States", USA). The reduction of the phonic body occurs above all in words that are long, that are difficult to pronounce (due to economy of language) or that are used very regularly. Sometimes the deletion of letters is accompanied by substitution by others (eg "mate", compi). Shortenings can also occur with various words or collocations, i.e. common expressions, such as "just in case", porsiaca.

Shortening is done by various deletion metaplasms:

• The aphéresis (loss of the seals at the beginning of a word).
• Syncopa (loss of the inner seals of a word).
• The apocope (loss of the final seals of a word).

In many cases, the shortening ends up taking precedence in common speech over the original word, such as "subway" instead of 'metropolitan [train]' or "zoo" instead of 'zoological'. Depending on each particular case, the shortening can be restricted to colloquial speech, children's language, such as hypocoristic or a specific slang/jargon, so that only in cases of formal registration is the word used in its entirety.

Examples

Only a few examples are listed in the Spanish language:

Toponymy

The abbreviation is also frequent in place names, that is, place names:

• Barcelona → Barna
• Bobigny → Boboch, Boboche
• Cuernavaca → Cuerna
• Gran Canaria → Granca
• Guatemala → Guate
• Medallo
• New Orleans → Nawlins
• Nezahualcóyotl → Neza
• Nicaragua → Nica
• San Francisco → Frisco
• Санкт-Петерг (Saint Petersburg) → Питер (Peter)