spelling, and in other cases has to be inferred from knowledge of the metre. Elisions occurred regularly in Latin, but were not written, except in inscriptions and comedy. Elision of a vowel before a word starting in a vowel is frequent in poetry, where the metre sometimes requires it. For example, the opening line of Catullus 3 is Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque, but would be read as Lugeto Veneres Cupidinesque (audio). There are many examples of poetic contraction in English verse of past centuries marked by spelling and punctuation. Frequently found examples are over > o'er and ever > e'er. Multiple examples can be seen in lines such as the following from Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray, published in 1751: Th' applause of list'ning senates to command He gain'd from heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend Deletion The term deletion is used in some modern work instead of elision. When contemporary or historic deletion is treated in terms of Generative phonology it is usual to explain the process as one of substituting zero for a phoneme, in the form of a phonological rule. The form of such rules is typically X --> ∅ (i.e. the segment x becomes zero) An example of a deletion rule (for /r/-deletion in English RP) is provided by Giegerich. If we start with the premise that the underlying form of the word "hear" has a final /r/ and has the phonological form /hɪər/, we need to be able to explain how /r/ is deleted at the end of "hear" but is not deleted in the derived word "hearing". The difference is between word-final /r/ in "hear", where the /r/ would form part of the rhyme of a syllable, and word-medial /r/ which would form the onset of the second syllable of "hearing". The following rule deletes /r/ in "hear", giving /hɪə/, but does not apply in the case of "hearing", giving /hɪərɪŋ/. rhyme /r/ --> ∅/ _ Writing Even though the effort that it takes to pronounce a word does not have any direct influence on writing, a word or phrase may be spelled in a way that reflects elisions. This happens in poetry, as explained above, and in drama in order to reflect the presence of elisions or non-standard speech forms. The term eye dialect is sometimes used to refer to this practice. Examples English Examples of elision in