A sign similar to a smooth breathing, called a coronis, is used to show when two words have joined together by a process called crasis ( " mixing " ), e . g . ( ) " I too ", contracted from ( ).
12.
In some cases, like in the French examples below, crasis involves the grammaticalization of two individual lexical items into one, but in other cases, like in the Greek examples, crasis is the orthographic representation of the encliticization and vowel reduction of one grammatical form with another.
13.
In some cases, like in the French examples below, crasis involves the grammaticalization of two individual lexical items into one, but in other cases, like in the Greek examples, crasis is the orthographic representation of the encliticization and vowel reduction of one grammatical form with another.
14.
The most frequently observed crasis today is the contraction of the preposition " a " ( " to " or " at " ) with the feminine singular definite article " a " ( " the " ), indicated in writing with a grave accent or masculine singular definite article " o " ( also " the " ).
15.
In strict analysis, abbreviations should not be confused with contractions, crasis, acronyms, or initialisms, with which they share some semantic and phonetic functions, though all four are connoted by the term " abbreviation " in loose parlance . An abbreviation is a shortening by any method; a contraction is a reduction of size by the drawing together of the parts.
16.
In addition, the crasis " ?" is pronounced lower as than the article or preposition " a ", as, in the examples in standard European Portuguese ., but the qualitative distinction is not made by most speakers in Brazilian Portuguese ( some dialects, as Rio de Janeiro's " fluminense ", are exceptions and make the distinction ).
17.
In central European Portuguese this contrast occurs in a limited morphological context, namely in verbs conjugation between the first person plural present and past perfect indicative forms of verbs such as " pensamos " ('we think') and " pens�mos " ('we thought'; spelled in Brazil ) . proposes that it is a kind of crasis rather than phonemic distinction of and.
