Appendix:Romanian contractions

The Romanian language makes frequent use of contractions, mostly with articles, pronouns and words beginning or ending in vowels.

As in English, not all contractions are necessary, but most are quite common.

Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns are contracted when used in their declined forms with compound perfect tense verbs and other declined pronouns.

Accusative + Compound perfect
These formations carry meanings such as "He saw me" (m-a văzut el).

Dative + Compound perfect
These formations carry meanings such as "He gave me something" (mi-a dat el ceva).

Dative + Accusative
Examples
 * O să ți-l dau mai târziu
 * O să ți-o dau mai târziu
 * I will give it to you later
 * O să ți-i dea mai târziu
 * O să ți-le dea mai târziu
 * He will give them to you later

Dative + Accusative + Compound perfect
These formations are more complicated than those above, and have meanings such as "He gave it to me" (mi l-a dat, or mi-a dat-o). Though there is no absolute rule for hyphenations, the preferred format tends to be something like this: mi l-ai, with one hyphen, rather than mi-l-ai, with two. Regardless of this hyphenation, the forms of ne, vă and le remain ni, vi and li before îl, îi, le and se.

Examples, with stressed dative and accusative in parentheses.
 * (nouă) ni l-au dat (pe el).

Pronouns following imperatives and gerundives
Note that when followed by personal pronouns, gerundives acquire a "u" between the verb and the pronoun
 * văzând + mă → văzându-mă (seeing me)

The one exception to this is the accusative o:
 * văzând + o → văzând-o (seeing her)

Others
Most other contractions are formed when words ending with vowels come before words beginning with them, causing them to "run together". (Note that not all vowels behave this way.) This often occurs when the word nu (no) negates a verb (for instance nu + înțeleg → nu-nțeleg, I don't understand).

să also combines with personal pronoun forms beginning with vowels (să + îmi → să-mi, să + îți → să-ți, să + îl → să-l, să + îi → să-i, etc.)


 * nu + e → nu-i
 * it's not
 * ce + e → ce-i
 * what's
 * în + o → într-o
 * în + un → într-un
 * in a/an
 * din + o → dintr-o
 * din + un → dintr-un
 * from a/an
 * prin + o → printr-o
 * prin + un → printr-un
 * through a/an