🚀 go-pugleaf

>Subject: optional contractions 
>From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
>Organization: University of California, Irvine
>Path: nntp.uio.no!nuug!aun.uninett.no!sunic!uunet!usc!news.service.uci.edu!skid.ps.uci.edu!cortese
>Reply-To: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
>Date: 7 Jan 93 23:27:16 GMT
>
>I know that there are languages, like French, that include contractions,
>but I was wondering if there were any around that had OPTIONAL
>contractions, as does English.  "I'm" is just as grammatical as "I am,"
>while "je aime" isn't acceptable.
>
>Please e-mail.
>
>Just wonderin',
>Janis C.
>
You will (you'll) find something related in Serbo-Croatian, where future tense 
like 'I shall work' is either
	Ja cu raditi
or:	(Ja) raditicu 
or:	(Ja) radicu
(the c should have a cirkumflex upside-down (a hacek) above)

'cu' is a short form for 'hocu', meaning 'I want', but is used as an 
auxiliary verb denoting future tense. It may be cliticized (as 'habere'
once was cliticized in Romance languages to denote future tense), but 
also remain a separate word. If cliticized, the infinitive may lose the
ending (variation according to dialect, if I remember correctly). 

Svein Lie
University of Oslo